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On Building a Bartenders LibraryJul 12 '00 Write an essay on this topic.There are a variety of different types of "Bartending Guides", and the criteria used for evaluating them will depend greatly on what type of guide you are shopping for. Wad-O-Drinks: Perhaps the most popular, as well as most misunderstood, are the bartending guides which attempt to simply list more cocktail recipes then their competitors. The assumption I suppose is that if a book with 1,000 cocktail recipes is good, then one with 2,000 must be great! Usually however just the opposite is the case. Not only will you end up with a confusing collection of sparse recipes for drinks that aren't really worth drinking, but even the recipes for "good" cocktails will probably be uninspiring. While I do recommend that everybody have at least one or two of these compendiums to assist them in their research, I don't recommend that they take the recipes listed in them as gospel. A good book of this type is: "American Bar : The Artistry of Mixing Drinks" by Charles Schumann. Cocktail Guidebook: While similar in nature to a "Wad-O-Drinks" book, this type of book will often have far fewer recipes. Instead it will focus on providing insights and observations on how to really make the drink correctly. Look up recipes such as the Sidecar, Old Fashioned, Martini, and Manhattan. A good Cocktail Guidebook will easily fill up an entire page, if not a chapter, on how to really understand each of these cocktails. After reading a book of this type, you will have a much better understanding of the concepts behind mixing a quality drink, and not just memorizing a recipe. A good book of this type is: "Cocktail : The Drinks Bible for the 21st Century" by Paul Harrington and Laura Moorhead Instructional: For those of you who want to know more about the entire process of bartending, and not just how to mix a great Martini, you'll want to find a book that tries to play the role of "Bartending School". It will cover not only how to mix the popular drinks, but it will also discuss topics such as dealing with customers, organizing your bar, proper construction of garnishes, and sometimes how to manage your staff. While few (if any) of these books can substitute for real world experience, they might at least provide you with some background information that can give you a good start. A good book of this type is: "Bartending for Dummies" by Raymond Foley There are of course many more types of books on cocktails then the above, but these should give you a good start at building up your knowledge about the true art of the cocktails.  |
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