In 2012, Manhattan mixology den Death & Co. snagged a $250,000 book deal with Ten Speed Press, a watershed moment in cocktail-book culture. Since its 2014 release, Death & Co. by David Kaplan, Nick Fauchald, and Alex Day has sold nearly 40,000 print copies, according to Nielsen BookScan, putting it among the top 15 bartending books since BookScan records began in 2004.

Another title that grew out of a storied New York City bar, The PDT Cocktail Book by Jim Meehan (Sterling Epicure, 2011), has sold more than 49,000 print copies since its release. As the numbers for these books on high-end drinking suggest, the key to success is to meld imaginative recipes with history, practical advice, and often, a sheen of glamour. Here, PW looks at the latest titles to belly up to the bar.

What’s in a Name?

Emily Timberlake, who edited Death & Co., says that the “spike in bar- or bartender-branded books mirrors the move in food publishing toward chef- and restaurant-driven cookbooks.”

Pedigree counts for readers who are better educated and more adventurous than ever, Timberlake says. “They’re interested in good, credible recipes—preferably developed by a real-life bartender—and are willing to seek out and try new ingredients, whether amari from Italy or bitters from New Orleans.”

Several forthcoming titles draw on the cachet of name-brand bars and bartenders. The Waldorf Astoria Bar Book (Penguin, May) by Frank Caiafa, bar manager of the Waldorf’s Peacock Alley, mixes hotel history with recipes for cocktails such as the Cole Porter, a twist on a whiskey sour named for the onetime Waldorf resident.

Smuggler’s Cove (Ten Speed, June) takes its title from the offbeat San Francisco tiki bar that Travel & Leisure named one of the best cocktail bars in the country in 2011. In the book, which highlights more than 100 classic and original recipes, bar founders Martin Cate and Rebecca Cate examine tiki culture from its Depression-era origins to its modern revival.

Matthew Biancaniello, who once helmed the Library Bar at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and now consults and organizes lauded pop-ups all over Los Angeles, capitalizes on local, seasonal ingredients in Eat Your Drink (Morrow/Dey Street, Mar.). Just as farmers’ market ingredients dominate restaurant menus, Biancaniello made his name with culinary cocktails such as the Heirloom Tomato Mojito.

This honed expertise is one of the biggest shifts that James Jayo, editor at Sterling Epicure, sees in the cocktail publishing realm. “The books that came out in the 1990s and early 2000s were geared toward the home bartender in a practical, how-to-make-a-drink style,” he says. Today, “because people have such varying taste in booze, cocktail books can target those tastes in a way that doesn’t have to be all encompassing.”

Spring brings a number of niche books that focus on the drinks associated with a particular culture. Like Ten Speed, Sterling Epicure is delving into tropical kitsch. In Tiki with a Twist (May), Lynn Calvo, proprietor of Lynn’s Hula Hut in Montauk, N.Y., offers décor tips to accent her 75 drink recipes.

Cuban Cocktails (Ryland, Peters & Small, Apr.) zeroes in on the island nation’s beverages, from the ubiquitous mojito to the lesser-known Ron Collins, a rummy spin on a Tom Collins. Robert Moss looks at drinking habits in the American South, from colonial days to the 21st century, in Southern Spirits (Ten Speed, Apr.), taking in everything from mint juleps to Madeira wine and imported Cognac.

Marissa Huff’s Aperitivo (Rizzoli, Apr.) escorts readers on a tour of negroni- and bellini-dispensing bars throughout Italy, with recipes for small dishes as well as drinks. In a similar vein, Spritz by Talia Baiocchi and Leslie Pariseau (Ten Speed, Mar.) investigates the history and revival of the effervescent wine-based Italian aperitif, from ancient Rome to the present-day United States.

Classic Good Looks

Strong visuals add to the appeal of these titles. “We’re having a great time publishing truly beautiful cocktail books,” says Ann Treistman, editorial director of Countryman Press. “The drinks look delicious on the page, so if you can’t be drinking at that very moment, you can enjoy reading about it.”

The publisher’s 2014 title Shrubs by Michael Dietsch showcased photos of farmers’ market produce and Crayola-hued cocktails poured into vintage pebbled glassware, and it sold nearly 9,000 print units according to BookScan—a respectable number for a book of drink recipes based on the traditional but unlikely-sounding combination of fruit, sugar, and vinegar. Photos in the forthcoming Zen and Tonic by Jules Aron (Apr.) show strawberries and flower petals suspended in sizable ice cubes, and green mint leaves setting off the red of a rum-based Crimson Smash.

The emphasis on photography dovetails with a widespread emphasis on a drink’s presentation. Sterling Epicure’s Jayo credits this to the rise of speakeasy culture, in which everything from the flocking on the wallpaper to the facial hair of the staff is carefully considered. “Before, there were swanky hotel bars and dirty martinis with blue cheese-stuffed olives,” he says, “but with the speakeasy there is this extra element of having to be in on a secret. That plays into the cool factor.”

Speakeasy culture has also propelled an interest in classic cocktails and barware. The single-drink paean Manhattan by Philip Greene (Sterling Epicure, May) could sit on a shelf next to The Old Fashioned by Robert Simonson (Ten Speed, 2014), which according to BookScan has sold more than 8,000 print units. The Coupe (Hoffman Media, June) celebrates the saucer-shaped glass and the cocktails served in it, with recipes and photos of vintage stemware.

Other books use tradition as a jumping-off point for modern interpretations. Remixology by Michael Turback and Julia Hastings-Black (Skyhorse, Mar.) reimagines 10 classics (among them the Bloody Mary and the whiskey sour), and The New Cocktail Hour by siblings André Darlington and Tenaya Darlington (Running Press, Apr.) suggests food pairings (sushi, pizza) for more than 200 vintage and modern beverages.

Spirits Library

Cocktail curiosity can lead to a deeper interest in a drink’s building blocks, too. In Craft Spirits (DK, Apr.), Eric Grossman profiles the wares of 250 artisan distillers around the world—e.g. Mamont vodka, produced by the oldest distillery in Siberia—and shows how they figure in drinks such as the Moscow Mule or mojito.

The Curious Bartender’s Gin Palace (Ryland Peters & Small, May) by Tristan Stephenson follows the journey of “Mother’s Ruin” from the Middle Ages to the present day, and Chris Burnette and Elise Coulter Burnette’s 101 Uses for Moonshine (Schiffer, May) shows the evolution of a distinctly American spirit through the lens of a small-batch Missouri distillery.

A number of titles, all being published in May, focus on the brown spirits central to many classic cocktails: Whiskey by Michael Dietsch (Countryman), Whiskypedia by Charles MacLean (Skyhorse), Iconic Whisky by Cyrille Mald and Alexandre Vingtier (Quarto/Small), and Bourbon Empire by Reid Mitenbuler (Penguin).

Ten Speed’s Timberlake says that as cocktail aficionados expand their knowledge, they seek “focused, deep dive–type books. Readers are interested in more than just solid cocktail recipes—they want history, context, and real reporting. So, we’re looking for books that touch on the big-picture issues in the spirits world today: the struggle for sustainable, grower-produced spirits in an industry dominated by mega-brands, or the search for terroir in Oaxacan mezcal and Caribbean rum.”

Yet amid the scholarship, there is also room in the market for whimsy. The top-selling bartending book of 2015, for example, was Tim Federle’s punny recipe collection Tequila Mockingbird (Running Press, 2013).

This season brings Pretty Fly for a Mai Tai (Octopus/Mitchell Beazley, Apr.), with recipes for everything from Good Limes Bad Limes to Mr. Brightsidecar. Esquire follows up 2011’s Eat like a Man (Chronicle; 24,000 print units, per BookScan) with June’s Drink like a Man, a nod to the magazine’s tagline, “Man at His Best.”

Perhaps the season’s cheekiest response to today’s bespoke drinking culture is Cocktails for Drinkers by Jennifer McCartney (Countryman, Mar.), which features old-fashioned type and illustrations alongside recipes for cocktails consisting of three ingredients or fewer, from a Bloodhound or a Brandy Alexander to red wine (one bottle makes one large drink). As far as directions, the red wine recipe simply advises, “You know what to do.”

Alia Akkam is a freelance writer covering food, drink, travel, and design.

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