cocktail recipe book with simple visuals?

March 5, 2019 6:14 PM

I want a simple book to show me the basics of cocktails. Everything I've seen isn't quite right...

I love supercall because of the visuals - each drink has a simple icon for each ingredient. If they sold a book, that would be perfect! but, it seems to be a website only.

I went to barns and noble and looked at each cocktail book - at least 25. None were prefect.

I don't want a book that will allow me to make any cocktail in the world, so long as I have a name. I only want some basics, classics.

I don't want a book that is an advertisement for a specific bar, with large, distracting lifestyle photos.

And I don't want a book that is a bunch of original recipes.

I want a book that has standards and basics (martini, manhattan, old fashioned, tequila sunrise), maybe the top 50 or something, that is easy to flip through, easy to identify ingredients.

posted by rebent to Food & Drink (9 answers total)

I own about 40 cocktail books. Hands-down the best is the PDT Cocktail Book. It will give you the basic "rules" that will help you learn basics so that you can mix drinks properly (for instance, if the drink is pure alcohol, like a martini, stir it; if it's got non-alcohol ingredients, like a gimlet, which has lime juice, shake it; if it has something frothy, like an egg white, dry shake the frothy ingredients, add the alcohol, then shake). It also has recipes for the go-to drinks like Martini, Manhattan, Corpse Reviver #2, etc.

But, if you're into visuals, there are specific books. Search for Visual Cocktails or Cocktail Infographics to find those. They're not as good, in my opinion.

But, if you only want one book, the PDT is the one, imo.
posted by dobbs at 6:21 PM on March 5, 2019

The Mr Boston guide can give you the basics.
posted by vrakatar at 6:27 PM on March 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

+1 on Mr. Boston. An old classic, straightforward. A thing to bear in mind is that making most cocktails isn't terribly tricky, so if the instructions in there look deceptively simple, they are instead correctly simple.
posted by Smearcase at 8:23 PM on March 5, 2019

As much as I love it, I really don't think the PDT book is what the OP is looking for. No instructional visuals (though the illustrations are arresting), mostly original recipes.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 8:46 PM on March 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

I would also say the Mr Boston--my most used cocktail reference--is not what the OP is looking for. Mr Boston's is just a giant recipe book of most recognizably-named cocktails, divided by base liquor. There's no cross-referencing, either, so you're on your own to recognize that the Autumn Leaves is just a riff on the Vieux Carre or that a daiquiri is just a margarita with a different base liquor.

I don't know of a reference like OP is seeking.
posted by crush at 9:04 PM on March 5, 2019

Perhaps this 3-Ingedient Cocktail? Or See Mix Drink?
posted by crush at 9:16 PM on March 5, 2019

Cocktail Codex is wonderful.
posted by sevensnowflakes at 10:53 PM on March 5, 2019

The Cocktail Codex is a very impressive piece of work but it's almost the opposite of accessible—or at least, it's like buying a 2,000-piece toolkit when you only need a screwdriver. Yes, it has recipes for drinks like Death & Company's "Ideal Old Fashioned" (which is indeed perfect), but it also has sections on using centrifuges to clarify ingredients.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 8:00 AM on March 6, 2019

My favorite book for this is Paul Harrington's book. It's out of print but you can find used copies from anywhere between $6 and $60. (Right now there's a $6 copy on Amazon.) This book is the print version of HotWired's Cocktail Time website, long since defunct.

The book was written in 1996-1998, right at the beginning of the modern cocktail movement. When bartenders were moving on from atrocities like Sex on the Beach and Kahlua Mudslides back to classic cocktails. There's a bunch of explanatory material in the beginning about classic American cocktails and how to make them. Then a few chosen recipes for both classics and some modern / updated classics. Also a section in the back with many more recipes sorted by base liquor, if you want some variety. Everything is pretty simple and not showy. It's a solid educational book.
posted by Nelson at 8:01 AM on March 6, 2019 [1 favorite]