The aptly-named King Cocktail of America is a fellow named Dale DeGroff, who has plied the mixology trade both behind the bar and as a high-profile consultant for more years that I suspect even he’d be comfortable admitting. Like the superlative bartender he is, Dale wears many hats — amiable drinks companion, mentor to the trade, imaginative cocktail creator, good friend to many — but one hat he appears to have only reluctantly worn is that of author, having to 2008 penned only a single book, The Craft of the Cocktail.
As of this holiday season, however, the DeGroff name graces not one, but two book spines, Dale having double his oeuvre with the publication of Essential Cocktails.
Easily one of the most attractive drinks books ever printed – I mean it, folks, this is a beautiful volume! – Essential Cocktails is loaded with, well, the absolute essentials anyone will need to know in order to approach today’s new cocktail culture. Pisco Sour? Check. The almost-forgotten Bronx Cocktail? Yep. Retro-drinks like the Zombie, Singapore Sling and Mai Tai? They’re in the book, too, as well as DeGroff originals, classic Sours like the French 75 and Sidecar, and page after page of anecdotes, information, historical notes and helpful hints like the section accompanying the pyrotechnic Blue Blazer, entitles “Avoiding Immolation.”
Essential Cocktails is not one of those pocket guides best kept in the liquor cabinet to be peeked at surreptitiously. It is, instead, a big and bold coffee table book, meant to be enjoyed, shared and displayed as testament to your excellence of taste.
Who to give it to: Anyone you visit regularly for drinks, or yourself.
Buy it at: All the usual outlets.
