Drinking on a diet isn’t easy. Unfortunately, alcohol can pack a caloric punch. Drinks loaded up with shots are also loaded up with calories. Add in mixers and you can drink a whole meal of calories in one or two drinks. Lower in alcohol, beer, wine and cider don’t pack quite the calorie punch that the hard stuff and cocktails can. But, I know that sometimes, all you really want is a cocktail. Luckily, there is a book for you – Skinnytinis – is all about the cocktails at half the calories. …Read More

Dr. Cocktail is a lovely little hardbound book peppered with interesting recipes, intriguing ingredients and luscious photos of cocktails and their ingredients. If that weren’t enough, the book has catchy chapter titles and cocktail names. …Read More

We can hardly believe that New Year’s Eve is around the corner! If you are looking for great cocktail recipes and finger food, then this is the book for you. The New Old Bar is the latest book from Steve McDonagh and Dan Smith of the Hearty Boys (winners of the first Next Food Network Star) out of one of my favorite cities – Chicago! And, the recipes have Chicago written all over them. …Read More

Not only do the photos in The Ambassador of Bourbon capture the process of making Maker’s Mark bourbon, it also captures the essence of Maker’s Mark. The Samuels family brought their vision to fruition in the historic Burk’s Distillery< …Read More

For any of you movie buffs, the 1976 battle between French wines and their upstart American counterparts entitled the “Judgment of Paris” was chronicled in the highly fictionalized movie Bottleshock. While Bottleshock was certainly entertaining and spotlighted the super cute Chris Pine, it didn’t exactly stick to the story. If you are interested in how the tale actually unfolded, pick up George Tabor’s Judgment of Pari …Read More

In The Billionaire’s Vinegar, Benjamin Wallace investigates one of the largest, if not the largest, alleged frauds in the wine business. The Billionaire’s Vinegar is a fascinating look into the world of high stakes, high priced wine. Loads of wine obsessed rich people looking to possess rare and elusive bottlings. You can see why this book is fascinating – it quickly caught my attention, and I was engrossed to the end. …Read More

The Wild Vine is a must read for any lover of American wine or what we like to call “weird varietals”. Weird varietals are obscure wines that are often made from indiginous grapes or hybrids. In this case, The Wild Vine chronicles the birth, growth and near death experience of Norton, a grape that its author calls the most American of grapes. As you learn in the book, it’s obscure, a hybrid and indiginous to the United States. …Read More

Poptails was made for this scorching summer heat! If you are wondering what poptails are, they are essentially popsicles made with booze. Yum! We received this book a few weeks ago and hadn’t gotten around to reviewing it. It’s hard to be excited about poptails when San Francisco has barely broken 70 this summer. However, we were inspired by the Oxley poptails that we had at the 2012 Tales of the Cocktail. As you can imagine, July in New Orleans is scorching hot with humidity so thick that you can cut it with a knife. It makes me sweat just thinking about it. Luckily, every day at high noon, Oxley served poptails made with their delicious gin. I was inspired. …Read More

This week’s book pick is Thoroughly Modern Milkshakes, an appropriate pick given the sweltering heat consuming most of the United States. I love milkshakes, actually, I really love malts, and was pretty excited to see this book show up. Thoroughly Modern Milkshakes covers everything from the basics, chocolate shake anyone, to the exotic, ever try a raspberry rose shake. We tried a few of the recipes and it is clear that Adam Ried, author of Thoroughly Modern Milkshakes, knows his stuff. …Read More

We thought that Cookout USA would be the perfect cookbook for Memorial Day. While not technically the start of summer, for many, Memorial Day signifies the start of summer and grilling season. I love everything about grilling season. The smell of the charcoal and grilling meats, the steamy weather and cold, refreshing drinks. Plus, there are fresh tomatoes, corn and watermelon to name a few of my food favorites! To me, summer, grilling and barbeques are intertwined and represent my favorite time of year. Although, grilling isn’t just reserved for summer – my dad fires up in the grill in January and wears full hunting regalia to tend to his wares (my dad lives in Wisconsin and hunting clothes are made warm – if you are football fan, many of the Green Bay Packer fans sport this same regalia at games in the winter). …Read More