A woman bartender recounts how her temporary withdrawal from corporate America turned into a ten-year position at a New York restaurant, during which she learned insider secrets and encountered a host of celebrities.
A national bestseller, the story of “a boy’s last days of youth and a history his father can’t leave behind” (The Daily Beast). Tom Harry has a streak of frost in his black pompadour and a venerable bar called The Medicine Lodge, the chief watering hole and last refuge in the town of Gros Ventre, in northern Montana. Tom also has a son named Rusty, an “accident between the sheets” whose mother deserted them both years ago. The pair make an odd kind of family, with the bar their true home, but they manage just fine. Until the summer of 1960, that is, when Rusty turns twelve. Change arrives with gale force, in the person of Proxy, a taxi dancer Tom knew back when, and her beatnik daughter, Francine. Is Francine, as Proxy claims, the unsuspected legacy of her and Tom’s past? Without a doubt she is an unsettling gust of the future, upending every certainty in Rusty’s life and generating a mist of passion and pretense that seems to obscure everyone’s vision but his own. The Bartender’s Tale wonderfully captures how the world becomes bigger and the past becomes more complex in the last moments of childhood.
“Compelling... [A] sure-bet read-alike for Stephanie Danler’s Sweetbitter.” --Booklist A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK by BuzzFeed, Goodreads, Electric Lit, New York Post, LitHub, BookRiot, and Library Journal A fiercely relatable coming-of-age debut novel about an aspiring bartender at the perfect Brooklyn neighborhood bar Samantha definitely does not want to be a bartender. But after a breakup and breakdown in San Francisco, she decides to defer law school for a year to move to New York, crashing on her best friend’s couch. When she is offered a job at Joe’s Apothecary, a beloved neighborhood bar in Brooklyn, she tells herself it’s only temporary. As Sam learns more about bartending and gets to know the service industry lifers and loyal regulars at Joe’s, she is increasingly seduced by her new job. She finds acceptance in her tight-knit community and even begins a new relationship. But as the year draws to a close, destructive cycles from her past threaten to consume her again. Sam is increasingly pulled between the life she thought she wanted and the possibility of a different kind of future. How much is she willing to let go of to finally belong? Filled with cocktail recipes and bartending tips and tricks, this captivating, utterly original debut will quench your thirst.
A narrative history of the craft cocktail renaissance, written by a New York Times cocktail writer and one of the foremost experts on the subject. A Proper Drink is the first-ever book to tell the full, unflinching story of the contemporary craft cocktail revival. Award-winning writer Robert Simonson interviewed more than 200 key players from around the world, and the result is a rollicking (if slightly tipsy) story of the characters—bars, bartenders, patrons, and visionaries—who in the last 25 years have changed the course of modern drink-making. The book also features a curated list of about 40 cocktails—25 modern classics, plus an additional 15 to 20 rediscovered classics and classic contenders—to emerge from the movement.
The story of a day at Passerby, Toby Cecchini's bar. It is a study of human nature, of the sometimes annoying, sometimes outlandish behaviour of the human animal under the influence of alcohol, lust and the sheer desire to bust loose and party.
Discover insider secrets and insight from bartenders all over the country on how to properly order, serve, and drink alcohol without looking like a novice. Each year we spend over $200 billion on alcoholic beverages. From egg white–infused cocktails and Italian liqueurs to barrel-aged beer and fortified wine, it can be difficult to keep track of all the latest trends. Bartenders know all the inside info, and they are ready to share their knowledge. Drink Like a Bartender is a modern and fresh guide to everything bar and booze related. Novice and experienced drink lovers will learn the secrets of the industry, such as: -Which drinks make a bartender judge you (two words: fireball whiskey) -When to order top shelf (if you are ordering a Long Island Iced Tea, then no…) -Whether you need to use specific glasses or not (the answer is yes) -What kind of liquors to always have in your house for guests (vodka) -When to shake and when to stir (James Bond was totally wrong with his martini) -How to order your drink at the bar (liquor first…always) With tips and secrets from mixologists all over the country, new takes on classic cocktail recipes, a glossary of bar terms and lingo only the pros use, and fascinating alcohol-related trivia, you will be thinking, talking, and drinking like a bartender in no time.
Jeremiah "Jerry" P. Thomas is considered the father of American mixology. In 1851, at the age of 21, he opened his first bar below Barnum's American Museum in New York City. After that he worked as the head bartender at hotels and bars throughout the US, he also visited Europe. Jerry Thomas was well known for his showmanship and fancy style of mixing cocktails. At some point he was among the most famous citizens of New York City. In 1862 Jerry Thomas finished his work "Bar-Tender's Guide", probably the first book of its kind ever published in the US. It contained a collection of traditional recipes as well as some of his own creations. The present book is a reprint of the updated edition of the Bar-Tender's Guide which has been published in 1887, two years after his early death.
Fiction. Short Stories. Anthology. BAR STORIES is a collection of short narratives about bars, pub culture, and, of necessity, public culture. "Whether you're carousing in LA, New York, or Boise, Idaho, you'll recognize your favorite watering hole in this glorious new book. Bar Stories has all the hook-ups, fall downs, colorful characters, and laughs of a great night on the town."-Chris Lukic
In the tradition of the popular business classics Leadership Is an Art and What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School, Dr. Helen Rothberg, a sought-after consultant to CEOs and entrepreneurs, reveals memorable insights about leadership developed while she worked as a bartender and restaurant manager. Good managers and good leaders are not always the same. Dr. Helen Rothberg trains leaders, from Fortune 500 executives to startup entrepreneurs, with her particular brand of ADVICE—Action, Determination, Vision, Integrity, Communication, Empathy. Based on the management and life lessons she learned from working as a bartender while getting graduate business and behavioral science degrees, each aspect of ADVICE helps leaders hone their vision—of themselves and their business. You will explore who you are and who you need to become, analyze what has worked in the past and what might work better in the future, and realize ways to continually adapt—with courage and grace—to the unpredictable, uncertain business environment. Through the book’s colorful stories of barroom brawls and boardroom bravado, competition and cooperation, conflict and other challenges, you’ll conceive of new ways to develop working relationships with colleagues and customers; keep things running smoothly; and manage infuriating, delightful, and sometimes dangerous clients as well as temperamental and talented employees, and owners or bosses with brilliant ideas who may not communicate well. Leading an organization is knowing when to stir or shake things up, blend or serve neat, and Dr. Rothberg finishes each chapter with the recipe for a creative cocktail that embodies a lesson, to mix perfectly, contemplate, and savor.
From the James Beard Award-winning author of Bitters and Amaro comes this poignant, funny, and often elegiac exploration of the question, What is the last thing you'd want to drink before you die?, with bartender profiles, portraits, and cocktail recipes. JAMES BEARD AWARD FINALIST • WINNER OF THE TALES OF THE COCKTAIL SPIRITED AWARD® • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR BY CHICAGO TRIBUNE Everyone knows the parlor game question asked of every chef and food personality in countless interviews: What is the last meal you'd want to eat before you die? But what does it look like when you pose the question to bartenders? In Last Call, James Beard Award-winning author Brad Thomas Parsons gathers the intriguing responses from a diverse range of bartenders around the country, including Guido Martelli at the Palizzi Social Club in Philadelphia (he chooses an extra-dry Martini), Joseph Stinchcomb at Saint Leo in Oxford, Mississippi (he picks the Last Word, a pre-Prohibition-era cocktail that's now a cult favorite), and Natasha David at Nitecap in New York City (she would be sipping an extra-salty Margarita). The resulting interviews and essays reveal a personal portrait of some of the country's top bartenders and their favorite drinks, while over 40 cocktail recipes and stunning photography make this a keepsake for barflies and cocktail enthusiasts of all stripes. Praise for Last Call “[Parsons] captures the people and places through stunning photographs and prose. Like a perfectly balanced cocktail, it is equal parts cocktail recipes, travelogue and mixtape.”—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution “Measure equal parts travelogue, tell-all, discography, and cocktail companion—in service of an obituary of all patrons—and you have Last Call; Brad Thomas Parsons’s best book yet. Through soulful photos and gritty interviews, he and photographer Ed Anderson capture the rawness, vulnerability, and ecstasy of the metamorphosis between the end of a guest’s night and the beginning of a bartender’s.”—Jim Meehan, author of Meehan’s Bartender Manual and The PDT Cocktail Book “This book is a delight. Last Call shows us the sense of community evoked by bartenders across the country, whose wisdom and tenderness are captured here both in words and beautiful photographs. It made me—an erstwhile bartender and faithful customer—happy to remember that we all have nights when we unexpectedly hear the words ‘last call,’ and that noble and fascinating bartenders are out there waiting to share it with us.”—Alan Cumming