I'm Just Here for the Drinks: A Guide to Spirits, Drinking and More Than One Hun

Teague is a bartender’s bartender, beverage director at NYC’S Amor y Amargo and an oft-cited authority everywhere from the Food Network to Heritage Radio. In this, his first book, he assumes that you’re not only interested in recipes: you want lore, cocktail culture, some flights of imagination, and a few shots of cold reality (you’re going to have to get serious about making ice the right way). And he delivers.

There are of course cocktail recipes, more than 100 of them, which run the gamut from the archetypal Manhattan to complex, edgy concoctions for when you’re pulling out all the stops at a party. But just as interesting are lengthy sidebars on unusual liquors and mixers, diversions into cocktail history, and exhortations to be adventurous in your taste by doctoring your bitters, making your own grenadine, and even smoking fruit juices.

Color photographs throughout. Hardcover.