The Bartender's Bible: 1001 Mixed Drinks and Everything You Need to Know to Set Up Your Bar

by Gary Regan

Book Overview

Mix Drinks Like A Pro

Now you can with this indispensable handbook, the most thorough'and thoroughly accessible'bartending guide ever created for both professional and home use. Encyclopedic in scope and filled with clear, simple instructions, The Bartender's Bible includes information on:

Stocking and equipping a bar'from liquors and mixers to condiments, garnishes, and equipment

Shot-by-shot recipes for over...

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0061092207
• ISBN13: 9780061092206
• Release Date: August 1993
• Publisher: HarperTorch
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 0.44 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Comprehensive, literate, entertaining, and informative

This book all the basic information you'd expect from a bartending guide: glassware, tools, alcohol, mixers, and a few hundred pages of clear, no-nonsense recipes. So far, so good. Two factors, however, distinguish this book from others like it: its organization and its snappy, literate prose. The Bartender's Bible is intelligently organized by main ingredient. It has separate chapters for bourbon, gin, tequila, vodka, rum, brandy, and whiskey, as well as several chapters for other broad categories such as "Hot Drinks" and "Cordials." This makes a lot of sense for the way most of us use a book like this -- you have a bottle of Bacardi, for example, and want to discover a few novel drinks that use rum. It's then a simple matter of turning to Chapter 5 and stumbling upon the recipe for a Cuba Libre, or a Maestro, or a Rum Sour, or dozens of other rum drinks that might strike your fancy. Or if you can't quite remember the name of that tequila concoction you were served last summer in Cozumel, just flip to Chapter 7 and thumb through until you find it. (Of course, if you know the name of a particular drink, there's a handy alphabetized index in the back.) This guide is the best on the market, however, because of Regan's skill as a writer. "Drinking," he muses, "has to do with friendship, good times, warm and tender moments, camaraderie, celebration, commiseration, birth and death, sealing a deal, remembering a friend -- the very things that life itself is about." He is equally entertaining when describing how bourbon is made as he is when remembering the warmth and laughter of his own favorite pub back in Lancashire. You could, in other words, read the narrative sections of this book and be charmed without ever consulting the recipes even once. Do yourself a favor and get the hardback or spiral edition -- this one is bound to get dog-eared from constant use.

The only one

It is not really needed but I will chime in and say it is the first drinks book I got, and the only one of the many I now have that I use. The others are OK for specialty applications but the sheer number of drinks in this one makes it an amazing experience. stellar are the introductions to each base ingredient section; how is gin made; is whiskey and whisky the same thing? Etc etc. A great buy!

Excellent Resource (but don't go "Sola Scriptura")

I use this book fairly often and I respect the amount of work put into it. It is easy to use to find drinks and its format better allows the reader to encounter new ones. That is the great strength of organizing the book by main ingredient/type. If you know you like gin or scotch, you can find drinks that feature them. If you like tropical drinks, this is a surprising goldmine of ideas, as it has a good section for them. You don't have to flip through the entire alphabet to get an idea of the drinks you can make with the various bases. The one point of confusion I find is with some tropical drinks outside of that section. As any fool should know, many rum drinks are tropical, so looking in both sections would benefit you. But after all there's always the INDEX!If you are trying to find a specific drink that you don't know how to make, why on earth wouldn't you use the alphabetically arranged index? Drinks in the index aren't listed just under their ingredients, they are also list by name. But the ingredient index is also very useful in planning the expansion of your bar. ... The opening sections on how to do the things you need to do to set up your bar is useful. It's not complete by any means, but it's adequate for the beginner and intermediate home bartender. I find some of the recommendations for the stocking process odd. For example, Anisette, Pernod/Ricard, and Sambuca are all listed as items a small bar should have, yet these ingredients are hardly used in the enormous collection of drinks the Bible boasts. They also impart relatively the same flavor, and if that's what matters to you then you'd be better with one and then wait a long time to get the others. Irish Cream and other crucial ingredients don't make the "Small bar" list. About drinks it doesn't have... oft-mentioned "Hurricane" is one I've seen in MANY different forms, so there is no sort of concensus on how it is made. It doesn't have many drinks that have become trendy, but it would be impractical to carry the latest drinks which rise to popularity quickly. However, I could see how a new edition could trim maybe 100 of the truly odd, obvious, or repetitive drinks to make room for some new ones. If you're trying to impress your friends by making "Flirtini"s then I suggest you scour the internet.Overall, this book would put you well on your way to establishing a real home bar. The Bible has some cool introductions and stories for the sections and cocktails, which whet your appetite for more. It is the first book you should own if you wish to enter the wonderful world of cocktails, but by no means the only one... it all depends on where you want to go from here.

Best Refrence Guide Available

I have perused through my fair share of bartending guides, and have found two genres: those that concentrate on instructing you how to bartend, and those that simply provide material you should know to bartend. I prefer the latter due simply to the fact that every one needs to develop thier own style of doing things. One's style need not be radically different from common practice, but rather allow the bartender to serve in a manner he or she sees fit. I am here to tell you that The Bartender's Bible is a most indespensible REFERENCE guide. The one complaint I hear about it is that it is organized by main ingredient rather than alphabetically. This may present INSIGNIFIGANT difficulties in locating the recipe... but if the user has an IQ surpassing your average speed bump, the problem can be easily overcome. I think that the style is rather perfect for the average home bar, where one does not have access to an abundance of different liquors, and must make due with whatever is on hand. If you don't want step by step instructions on HOW to pour alcohol, this is your book. If you ARE looking for explicit directions on how to do menial task such as shaking the saker, or straining ice from a concoction... This 'aint 'fer 'yew.