Bogus Cocktail Books

Somebody recently asked me how to spot a lousy cocktail book. The Cocktail Handbook, by Maria Contantino is but one example of such a book, and I thought it might be amusing to make fun on it.

Since I’m no newcomer to cocktails, I typically skip past the first part of books that tell you what to buy and how to use it and delve straight into the recipes. This book, however, doesn’t use ounces to measure the cocktails- it just says 1 measure, etc. But she’s not strictly using ratios either, as she’ll then slip in a teaspoon of something. So I had to go back to the beginning part of the book to find out what she thinks a “measure” is. It turns out in Maria’s world, one measure=25ml. I have no idea what a ml is, but no problem- I have a computer handy. It turns on 25 ml is equal to 0.845350 fluid ounces. Wow, thanks. That’s REAL useful. Strangely, I don’t have anything that measures 0.845350 fluid ounces lying around. She goes onto suggest once you get as good as her you won’t need to measure at all. I see what’s going on- she has no idea what amounts she uses. Whatever, the measurements in recipes are always wrong anyway, so I’ll just figure them out myself.

While perusing the front section, I couldn’t help but notice she neglected to explain how to use a shaker.

The book is separated into sections with drinks using the same base spirit, and I much prefer this to wholly alphabetized cocktail books. The first section is gin, and the first cocktail is the Bennet. I know this one! (It’s not as good as a Pegu Club.) But wait, check this out- her recipe is 2 measures gin, 2/3 measure lime juice, 1/3 measure sugar syrup and 1 dash bitters. Okay, so what’s 1/3 of 0.845350 fluid ounces? I already know it’s supposed to be 1 tsp, so why the unnecessary complication (especially since she uses teaspoon elsewhere)? I’ll stop harping on it.

Her instructions throughout the book are to shake with ice cubes instead of cracked ice. She must be a vigorous shaker.

Her 26 gin drinks are extremely basic and boring. A lot of gin and citrus juice combinations. Also a lot of what I call “genre” drinks: Gin Collins, Gin Daisy, Gin Fizz, Gin Rickey, Gin Sling, Gin Swizzle…. For a book entitled the The Cocktail Handbook, these are sure a lot of drinks other than cocktails. Her martini is acceptable. There were three gin drinks mentioned that I hadn’t tried. The Pink Pussycat was stupid. The Grass Skirt called for the drink to be shaken and poured unstrained into an old-fashioned glass, which no self-respecting bartender would do (you put fresh ice cubes into the glass and strain out the mostly-melted cracked ones). The Honolulu looked interesting, so I started making it- only to realize she was asking for ¼ teaspoon of three juices instead of ¼ ounce which was obviously what was meant. So I ignored the book (also using 1.5 ounces of gin instead of 1.5 measures or 1.268025 ounces) and the drink turned out pretty good, if a little boring.

Not having any rum, I paid less attention to the rum recipes and started reading the short drink descriptions. Turns out, they aren’t descriptions at all; simply conjectures on the drink name’s origin and punny plays on their names. These could have all been written without having tried the drink. The most descriptive she gets is “orange-and-cinnamon flavored” for a drink containing rum, sweet vermouth, orange and cinnamon. She’s a damn poet.

In the vodka section I come across the third drink containing grapefruit juice, and the third time I’ve read something like “This is the best way to drink grapefruit juice!” She seems to be under the impression that grapefruit juice is extremely sour, which is odd. She also often writes, “Try it and see what you think.” I suspect this author is a teetotaler. She couldn’t think of a way to comment on the name Volga so she didn’t write anything.

The whisky section continues with the stupidity. She doesn’t know that all bourbon uses sour mash. Here’s the description for the Thunderclap, an appalling beverage: “Too many of these, and that’s what a pin dropping will sound like!” I want to punch this lady in the face. She continues with the genre beverages- the highball, the sour, the squirt….

There is a drink in the tequila section called the Doralto that is simply outstanding. This one recipe (which I altered only slightly) suddenly makes this book worth purchasing.

I also discovered a decent and heretofore unknown tequila-based drink in the Poker Face. (She fails to correctly describe how to build a highball, but my standards are so low at this point I almost didn’t mention it.) The author claims gold tequila has been aged 2-4 years, when in actuality it is un-aged (silver) tequila with yellow food coloring. (The intention of gold tequila is for gringos to mistake it for reposado tequila, which is aged from 2 to 11 months.) I also created a decent drink by changing the Icebreaker recipe completely.

I can barely go on- the ludicrous Tequila Moonrise is described as: “After the sun goes down, up comes the moon!” She is fond of exclamatory comments. The Operator is “A great ginger-wine flavor!” The ingredients? White wine, ginger ale, lime juice.

New gripe: Extremely similar cocktails in the same book. The Sidecar AND the Tantalus? The Negroni AND the Americano (even after she mentions the similarilty)? (I had already forgiven the Martini, Gibson, Kangaroo trilogy).

In the champagne section there suddenly pops out a drink that the author has actually tried: the Bamboo. Or at any rate she gives an opinion on it. Curiously, for this drink, she’s suddenly keen on pointing out that the mixing glass and cocktail glass should be chilled, which is true of ALL cocktails. I’d try it if I had sherry.

Mercifully, the book ends. With the Yellowjacket, a boring mocktail combination of fruit juices, described thusly: “A yellowjacket is a type of wasp, so be prepared for quite a sharp ‘sting’ of a drink!”