Product Description: During Prohibition, while Al Capone was rising to worldwide prominence as Public Enemy Number One, the townspeople of rural Templeton, Iowa—population just 428—were busy with a bootlegging empire of their own. Led by Joe Irlbeck, the whip-smart and gregarious son of a Bavarian immigrant, the outfit of farmers, small merchants, and even the church monsignor worked together to create a whiskey so excellent it was ordered by name: "Templeton rye...read more

Product Description: A professional booze writer whose life spins out of control tries to piece it back together by embarking upon an epic wine-fueled adventure that takes him to every corner of the U.S. Part vision quest, part guidebook, part journey into the bizarre tapestry of American life, it will make you laugh, make you cry and teach you a whole lot about wine...read more

Product Description: A visual history of American whiskey, as told through hundreds of whiskey bottle labels, from early, pre-Prohibition-era days to the present.Just as wine is to the French or beer is to the Germans, whiskey--especially bourbon and rye--is  an integral part of the history and culture of the United States...read more

When Adventures on the Wine Route was first published, Victor Hazan said, "In Kermit Lynch's small, true, delightful book there is more understanding about what wine really is than in everything else I have read." A quarter century later, this remarkable journey of wine, travel, and taste remains an essential volume for wine lovers. In 2007, Eric Asimov, in The New York Times, called it "one of the finest American books on wine," and in 2012, The Wall Street Journal pro-claimed that it "may be the best book on the wine business."In celebration of its twenty-fifth anniversary, Adventures on the Wine Route has been thoroughly redesigned and updated with an epilogue and a list of the great wine connoisseur's twenty-five most memorable bottles. In this singular tour along the French wine route, Lynch ventures forth to find the very essence of the wine world. In doing so, he never shies away from the attitudes, opinions, and beliefs that have made him one of our most respected and outspoken authorities on wine. Yet his guiding philosophy is exquisitely simple. As he writes in the introduction, "Wine is, above all, about pleasure. Those who make it ponderous make it dull . . . If you keep an open mind and take each wine on its own terms, there is a world of magic to discover." Adventures on the Wine Route is the ultimate quest for this magic via France's most distinguished vineyards and wine cellars. Lynch draws vivid portraits of vintners―from inebriated négociants to a man who oversees a vineyard that has been in his family for five hundred years―and memorably evokes the countryside at every turn. "The French," Lynch writes, "with their aristocratic heritage, their experience and tradition, approach wine from another point of view . . . and one cannot appreciate French wine with any depth of understanding without knowing how the French themselves look at their wines, by going to the source, descending into their cold, humid cellars, tasting with them, and listening to the language they employ to describe their wines."Here, Kermit Lynch assures a whole new generation of readers―as well as his loyal fans―that discussions about wine need not focus so stringently on "the pH, the oak, the body, the finish," but rather on the "gaiety" of the way "the tart fruit perfume[s] the palate and the brain."

Product Description: A handsome and comprehensive bartending guide for professional and home bartenders that includes history, lore, and 150 recipes. The Essential Bar Book is full of indispensable information about everything boozy that’s good to drink...read more

Product Description: The Search for Good Wine is a highly entertaining and informative book on all aspects of wine and its consumption by nationally-syndicated wine columnist John Hailman, author of the critically-acclaimed Thomas Jefferson on Wine (2006)...read more

Product Description: In a relatively short span, Willamette Valley wineries have made good on the tempting recipe of rich soils, mild climate and an extended growing season to produce world-class wines while leading the industry in sustainable practices...read more

Product Description: Making Award Winning Wines at Home covers absolutely everything that amateur winemakers need to know, with sound advice based on modern science and professional-level winemaking methodology. Author Bill Smith is a wine competition judge who draws on his life's work as an anaerobic fermentation research scientist to offer this comprehensive guide to home winemaking...read more

Product Description: This smart guide to whiskey introduces a new generation of would-be connoisseurs to the hottest new-again spirit. And with upstart distillers reviving varieties like white dog (moonshine to prohibition-era folks), now is the best time to start learning about it...read more

Product Description: From the U.K.'s preeminent bartender and one of the leading authorities on "modernist mixology" comes this collection of 60 revolutionary cocktails, all grounded in the classics but utilizing technologies and techniques from the molecular gastronomy movement...read more

Product Description: Eric Asimov, the acclaimed chief wine critic for the New York Times, has written a beautiful and thought-provoking combination memoir and manifesto, How to Love Wine.With charm, wit, and intelligence, Asimov tells how he went from writing beer reviews for his high school newspaper on Long Island to the most coveted job in the industry...read more