cover image Highballs High Heels: A Girls Guide to the Art of Cocktails

Highballs High Heels: A Girls Guide to the Art of Cocktails

Karen Brooks. Chronicle Books, $14.95 (96pp) ISBN 978-0-8118-3017-1

The '50s-style cocktail party is back in style, and it's not your father's grumpy, whiskey-sodden affair. In Highballs and High Heels: A Girl's Guide to the Art of Cocktails, the authors of Atomic Cocktails show us just how feminine this nostalgic art form can be. Karen Brooks, Gideon Bosker and Reed Darmon demystify the requisite ""gadgets and gizmos"" (from the cocktail shaker to the lemon zester), cocktail adornment (including the jeweled Turbinado Sugar Rim and the campy swizzle stick) and the hostess-to-die-for look (it's all about ""killer heels""). Drink recipes range from now-trendy layered beverages with names like Blonde Bombshell and Stiletto Cocktail, margaritas (Venus Envy and Fallen Angelita) and others that resist easy categorization, like the grenadine-tinged Shirley Temple's Evil Twin or, for suburbanites who need soothing, the Minivan Mom Meltdown Mixer, with vodka, lemonade, Pimm's No. 1 and cucumber slices. ( June)