Whether you’re new to mixology or you’ve been at it for years, there’s always a great new recipe to discover. We’ve rounded up the best bartending books to help you improve your drink mixing. Best of all, all these books are easy to find on Amazon.
1. The Ultimate Bar Book: The Comprehensive Guide to Over 1,000 Cocktails
Ultimate Bar Book is the first and only guide to classic and new drink recipes. Loaded with essential-to-know topics such as barware, tools, and mixing tips, this book has it all. As a mistress of mixology, the author has the classics down to a Tthe Martini, the Bloody Mary, plus the many variations (the Dirty Martini, the Virgin Mary).
And then there are all the creative new elixirs the author brings to the table, like the Tasmanian Twister Cocktail or the Citron Sparkler. Illustrations show precisely what type of glass should be used for each drink. With dozens of recipes for garnishes, rims, infusions, and syrups; punches, gelatin shooters, hot drinks, and non-alcoholic beverages; andlet’s not forgetan essential selection of hangover remedies, Ultimate Bar Book is nothing short of top-shelf.
2. The Art of Mixology
Cocktails have an unwavering, timeless style so become a purveyor of fine drinking with this collection of classic and contemporary recipes. Learn the skills of the bespoke bartender and stir up some truly exquisite flavors, using premium spirits and authentic ingredients. Whether it’s creating a cocktail hour martini or fixing a brandy Alexander nightcap, explore the art of mixology with this stylish guide to exclusive drinking.
3. Liquid Intelligence: The Art and Science of the Perfect Cocktail
Years of rigorous experimentation and study―botched attempts and inspired solutions―have yielded the recipes and techniques found in these pages. Featuring more than 120 recipes and nearly 450 color photographs, Liquid Intelligence begins with the simple―how ice forms and how to make crystal-clear cubes in your own freezer―and then progresses into advanced techniques like clarifying cloudy lime juice with enzymes, nitro-muddling fresh basil to prevent browning, and infusing vodka with coffee, orange, or peppercorns.
Practical tips for preparing drinks by the pitcher, making homemade sodas, and building a specialized bar in your own home are exactly what drink enthusiasts need to know. For devotees seeking the cutting edge, chapters on liquid nitrogen, chitosan/gellan washing, and the applications of a centrifuge expand the boundaries of traditional cocktail craft.
4. The Drunken Botanist
Sake began with a grain of rice. Scotch emerged from barley, tequila from agave, rum from sugarcane, bourbon from corn. Thirsty yet? In The Drunken Botanist, Amy Stewart explores the dizzying array of herbs, flowers, trees, fruits, and fungi that humans have, through ingenuity, inspiration, and sheer desperation, contrived to transform into alcohol over the centuries.
Of all the extraordinary and obscure plants that have been fermented and distilled, a few are dangerous, some are downright bizarre, and one is as ancient as dinosaurs–but each represents a unique cultural contribution to our global drinking traditions and our history.
This fascinating concoction of biology, chemistry, history, etymology, and mixology–with more than fifty drink recipes and growing tips for gardeners–will make you the most popular guest at any cocktail party.
5. The Joy of Mixology: The Consummate Guide to the Bartender’s Craft
An original book on the craft of mixology is a rare gem. Gary Regan’s The Joy of Mixology is such a gem, one whose genius lies in Regan’s breakthrough system for categorizing drinks that helps bartenders—both professionals and amateurs alike—not only to remember drink recipes but also to invent their own.
For example, once you understand that the Margarita is a member of the New Orleans Sour Family, you’ll instantly see that a Kamikaze is just a vodka-based Margarita; a Cosmopolitan follows the same formula, with some cranberry juice thrown in for color. Similarly, the Manhattan and the Rob Roy, both members of the French-Italian family, are variations on the whiskey-vermouth-bitters formula.
With more than 350 drink recipes, The Joy of Mixology is the ultimate bar guide. Ground-breaking and authoritative, it’s a must-have for anyone interested in the craft of the cocktail.
6. The Curious Bartender: The Artistry and Alchemy of Creating the Perfect Cocktail
Preparing a first-class cocktail relies upon a deep understanding of its ingredients, the delicate alchemy of how they work together their flavor, aroma and color. Most of all, mixing a sublime cocktail is an art.
In The Curious Bartender, the mastermind behind three of London’s most avant-garde cocktail bars Tristan Stephenson explores and experiments with the art of preparing the perfect cocktail, explaining the fascinating modern turns mixology has taken. Showcasing a selection of classic cocktails, Tristan explains their intriguing origins, introducing the colorful characters who inspired or created them and how they were intertwined within their historical context.
Moving on, he reinvents each drink from his laboratory, adding contemporary twists to breathe fresh life into these vintage classics. Stay true to the originals with a Sazerac or a Rob Roy, or experiment with some of his modern variations. Also included is a reference section, detailing all the techniques and equipment you will need, making this an essential and exciting anthology for the cocktail enthusiast.
7. The Little Black Book of Cocktails: The Essential Guide to New & Old Classics
Here’s to cocktails! Mix them, drink them, enjoy them. This bestselling Little Black Book of Cocktails includes more than 150 recipes for classic cocktails, martinis, punches, tropical drinks (with or without umbrellas), dessert drinks, naughty-sounding cocktails (like ”Between the Sheets” and ”French Kiss”), tips on cocktail culture, a glossary, and amusing anecdotes.
8. Death & Co: Modern Classic Cocktails
The definitive guide to the contemporary craft cocktail movement, from one of the highest-profile, most critically lauded, and influential bars in the world.
Death & Co is the most important, influential, and oft-imitated bar to emerge from the contemporary craft cocktail movement. Since its opening in 2006, Death & Co has been a must-visit destination for serious drinkers and cocktail enthusiasts, and the winner of every major industry award—including America’s Best Cocktail Bar and Best Cocktail Menu at the Tales of the Cocktail convention. Boasting a supremely talented and creative bar staff—the best in the industry—Death & Co is also the birthplace of some of the modern era’s most iconic drinks, such as the Oaxaca Old-Fashioned, Naked and Famous, and the Conference.
Destined to become a definitive reference on craft cocktails, Death & Co features more than 500 of the bar’s most innovative and sought-after cocktails. But more than just a collection of recipes, Death & Co is also a complete cocktail education, with information on the theory and philosophy of drink making, a complete guide to buying and using spirits, and step-by-step instructions for mastering key bartending techniques. Filled with beautiful, evocative photography; illustrative charts and infographics; and colorful essays about the characters who fill the bar each night; Death & Co—like its namesake bar—is bold, elegant, and setting the pace for mixologists around the world.
9. Elemental Mixology
Before 1920, American bar-tenders tended to understand various types of drinks rather than memorize their recipes. Today, bar-tenders tend to memorize recipes for drinks. This is not mixology. Once a bar-tender of yore understood how to make a delicious Brandy Cocktail, their Whiskey Cocktail, Rum Cocktail and Gin Cocktail would also be good. Once a bar-tender’s Brandy Fizz was tasty, so was their Whiskey Fizz, Rum Fizz and Gin Fizz. The same went for punches, sours, daisies, roses, toddies, slings, cobblers, cups, fixes, juleps, flips, etc.
The rediscovery of the power of traditional, American mixology is due. A substantial mixology, strengthened by the knowledge of centuries of development, should replace the superficial imagery and rote memorization that is mistaken for it today. For years, I have watched students reap the benefits of the old mixology and use it to intuitively create masterpiece drinks. I hope that anyone who reads this book will experience similar results.
10. The Craft of the Cocktail: Everything You Need to Know to Be a Master Bartender, with 500 Recipes Kindle Edition
The first real cookbook for cocktails, featuring 500 recipes from the wolrd’s premier mixologist, Dale DeGroff.
Covering the entire breadth of this rich subject, The Craft of the Cocktail provides much more than merely the same old recipes: it delves into history, personalities, and anecdotes; it shows you how to set up a bar, master important techniques, and use tools correctly; and it delivers unique concoctions, many featuring DeGroff’s signature use of fresh juices, as well as all the classics.
It begins with the history of spirits, how they’re made (but without too much boring science), the development of the mixed drink, and the culture it created, all drawn from DeGroff’s vast library of vintage cocktail books. Then on to stocking the essential bar, choosing the right tools and ingredients, and mastering key techniques—the same information that DeGroff shares with the bartenders he trains in seminars and through his videos. And then the meat of the matter: 500 recipes, including everything from tried-and-true classics to of-the-moment originals. Throughout are rich stories, vintage recipes, fast facts, and other entertaining asides.
Beautiful color photographs and a striking design round out the cookbook approach to this subject, highlighting the difference between an under-the-bar handbook and a stylish, full-blown treatment. The Craft of the Cocktail is that treatment, destined to become the bible of the bar.
11. Tequila Mockingbird: Cocktails with a Literary Twist
Congrats. You fought through War and Peace, burned through Fahrenheit 451, and sailed through Moby-Dick. All right, you nearly drowned in Moby-Dick, but you made it to shore—and you deserve a drink!
A fun gift for barflies and a terrific treat for book clubs, Tequila Mockingbird is the ultimate cocktail book for the literary obsessed. Featuring 65 delicious drink recipes—paired with wry commentary on history’s most beloved novels—the book also includes bar bites, drinking games, and whimsical illustrations throughout.
Even if you don’t have a B.A. in English, tonight you’re gonna drink like you do. Drinks include:
- The Pitcher of Dorian Grey Goose
- The Last of the Mojitos
- Love in the Time of Kahlúa
- Romeo and Julep
- A Rum of One’s Own
- Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margarita
- Vermouth the Bell Tolls
- and more!
12. Shake: A New Perspective on Cocktails
An artisinal cocktail book by two best friends and the entrepreneurs who invented the The Mason Shaker cocktail shaker and whose mission is to bring cocktail crafting out of the bar and into the home.
Design, cocktail, and culinary enthusiasts Eric Prum and Josh Williams realized that while cocktail bars have sprouted up just about everywhere, good drinks still couldn’t be found in the one place where they always mixed them: at home with friends.
So, from their Brooklyn workshop, where they designed, created, and launched The Mason Shaker, a now-iconic invention that transformed a Mason jar into a cocktail shaker, they also created Shake. One part instructional recipe book and one part photo journey through their year of cocktail crafting, the book is a simple and inspirational expression of their seasonal, straightforward approach to drinks and entertaining: Mixing cocktails should be simple, social, and above all, fun.
Each recipe is presented visually, in four color photos, as well as in written recipes, making Shake both an arresting gift and a practical guidebook to simple, elegant cocktails.
13. The Bartender’s Bible: 1001 Mixed Drinks and Everything You Need to Know to Set Up Your Bar
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 1,000 cocktails and mixed drinks from bourbon to rum to whiskey
- Wine drinks
- Beer drinks
- Nonalcoholic drinks
- Special category drinks’tropical, classics, aperitifs, cordials, hot drinks, and party punches
- Anecdotes and histories of favorite potables
- And more!
If you’ve ever wondered whether to shake or stir a proper Martini, or what to do with those dusty bottles of flavored liqueurs,The Bartender’s Bibleis the only book you need!
14. Bitters: A Spirited History of a Classic Cure-All, with Cocktails, Recipes, and Formulas
one are the days when a lonely bottle of Angostura bitters held court behind the bar. A cocktail renaissance has swept across the country, inspiring in bartenders and their thirsty patrons a new fascination with the ingredients, techniques, and traditions that make the American cocktail so special. And few ingredients have as rich a history or serve as fundamental a role in our beverage heritage as bitters.
Author and bitters enthusiast Brad Thomas Parsons traces the history of the world’s most storied elixir, from its earliest “snake oil” days to its near evaporation after Prohibition to its ascension as a beloved (and at times obsessed-over) ingredient on the contemporary bar scene. Parsons writes from the front lines of the bitters boom, where he has access to the best and boldest new brands and flavors, the most innovative artisanal producers, and insider knowledge of the bitters-making process.
Part recipe book, part project guide, part barman’s manifesto, Bitters is a celebration of good cocktails made well, and of the once-forgotten but blessedly rediscovered virtues of bitters.
15. The Bar Book: Elements of Cocktail Technique
ritten by renowned bartender and cocktail blogger Jeffrey Morgenthaler, The Bar Book is the only technique-driven cocktail handbook out there. This indispensable guide breaks down bartending into essential techniques, and then applies them to building the best drinks.
More than 60 recipes illustrate the concepts explored in the text, ranging from juicing, garnishing, carbonating, stirring, and shaking to choosing the correct ice for proper chilling and dilution of a drink. With how-to photography to provide inspiration and guidance, this book breaks new ground for the home cocktail enthusiast.