61. How's Your Drink?, by Eric Felton
I didn’t know what to expect when I opened How’s Your Drink? for the first time, but it certainly exceeded any and all expectations I had for a book about cocktails. When I saw it on Buzzfeed’s list, I thought it would essentially be a cocktail cookbook of sorts—recipes on one page with brightly colored pictures on the other. However, you don’t have to look at the book for very long to realize that Eric Felton is a bit classier than that. What Felton managed to do was write an incredibly tasteful book about the history of cocktails and drinking, while weaving recipes in along the way.
Nobody ever thinks about the history of cocktails. You walk up to the bar, say a name, and hope that a) the bartender knows how to make it and/or b) it tastes good. Maybe this is just from the perspective of someone who has never really enjoyed cocktails, but it seems like you really need to know your stuff in order to avoid ordering a drink that isn’t either incredibly generic, or brightly colored and made up of six different types of liquor. For that reason, I must say that I admire Felton for his knowledge of “the art of drinking well”; the fact that there is someone out there who actually took the time to research the history of drinking so thoroughly is pretty impressive.
It wasn’t until after finishing How’s Your Drink? that I realized what an intellectual read it was. Not only did Felton clearly do a lot of academic research on the history of cocktails, but he also references items from pop-culture, such as the James Bond films. It’s astonishing that one man can not only understand the topic of cocktails so thoroughly but also that he is able to write about it in such an interesting and engaging way.
All in all, How’s Your Drink? is a great book. It’s not every day you find a history lesson, recipe book and social guide all between one cover, so I’d highly encourage anyone who finds this review even remotely interesting to pick up a copy of Felton’s book. I really wasn’t expecting much when I started reading, and I was incredibly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. And this is coming from a girl who is “strictly a beer person.”
While How’s Your Drink? resides under the “How To” section of Buzzfeed’s list, it’s much more than a how-to book. In a way, it’s a book made for transitions. In college, drinking wasn’t an art. If it came in a red cup, it was good enough. However, as the parties we attend go from frat to cocktail, it’s probably not a bad idea to learn that a drink in a highball glass is going to make a much better impression than a bottle of beer. This doesn’t mean that we have to change our drinking preferences to fit in with those around us, but we can if we want to. How’s Your Drink? asks us to think about how we represent ourselves during social outings which, as we mature through our twenties, is probably a good thing. Plus, with all of Felton’s fun history tidbits in mind, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to impress your friends and colleagues with your knowledge of all things cocktail.
