Enjoyable but underwhelming. A fun idea but overall I feel like this is a thematic style that has been done before and will be done again and there wasn't a unique twist that the author brought that would have made it stand out.

Love this collection of history and drinks. A great addition to any coffee table and a great conversation starter with all your gals.

When I was in university, our women’s resource center would have a charity event every year called Women Who Rock. It was, essentially, a band show at a bar that featured female music groups of all sorts, and the bar also sold drinks with amazing names like Menstruation Sensation. When I finished reading Women’s Libation! Cocktails to Celebrate a Woman’s Right to Booze by Merrily Grashin, my immediate reaction was to mail a copy to each of my former volunteer mates. Finally, more inclusive drink names we could use!

Women’s Libation is in essence, a cocktail recipe book with illustrations and a page explaining the punny drink name. Feminists of yore are honored for their work, and moments in feminist history are marked. Nothing revolutionary, but it wasn’t meant to be. If you’ve never mixed drinks before, Grashin has you covered with a basic overview of the tools you need, methods to know and some common ingredients.

There are a few missteps here; not all the women in the book are exactly deserving of a cheers or a drink. Aung San Suu Kyi is honored with a twist on the Singapore sling, and Coco Chanel with the sangrita Mez Coco Chanel No 5.

Granted, that could just be poor timing as the book was likely completed months before Aung San Suu Kyi refused to speak out against the genocide in Myanmar. Still, this isn’t the first time she’s been quiet about violence against Muslims; the calls for the repeal of her Nobel Peace Prize are only the most recent and forceful criticisms against her. Coco Chanel I’m a bit more puzzled by. Now, there has yet to be any clear hard evidence that Chanel was an active Nazi agent, but there is some reason to believe that she was and at best being a Nazi wasn’t a deal breaker for her. I think if there’s any dispute about whether you are a Nazi, there’s only one drink for you.

Seriously, Chanel should have been bumped and Dorothy Parker honored with a Manhattan. That’s a huge missed opportunity!

Nevertheless, Women’s Libation! is a quirky recipe book sure to tickle your funny bone. While many of the blurbs may just be fact regurgitation, the drawings are adorable and the puns wonderfully groan worthy. As for the recipes themselves? They are twists on classics, nothing too crazy to make the drink unrecognizable and some like the Our Toddies, Ourselves are in my opinion an improvement on the standard. I didn’t get to test very many of them, but as a former bartender, so many of them looked good. If nothing else, dear reader, I do believe this is an excellent resource for those bar fundraisers. Why not replace all the cocktail names for the night? I guarantee more money will be raised through drinks that way.

Cheers!

Women’s Libation! Cocktails to Celebrate a Woman’s Right to Booze By Merrily Grashin was published on November 7th, 2017, and is available wherever fine books are sold.

A sly and joyful illustrated cocktail guide that's perfect for the feminist potluck club in your life.

This is a great book. This book has a charming, quirky cocktail book that raises a toast to our feminist heroes, featuring easy-to-follow recipes alongside famous figures, events, and touchstones of women's history. I am looking forward to trying the recipes in this book!

Delightfully charming read. I would have preferred more history was included but the range of women covered was good. A quirky gift perfect for the feminists in your life.

This was an okay book. I would have appreciated more history, and probably fewer recipes, but I understand that that's just a personal preference.

This book totally cracked me up! Love it! First of all, just glancing at the recipes in search of one of my favorite cocktails (French 75), it had been renamed to "Dolly Parton My French 75" and second, it's always nice to see the proper glasses for each cocktail, tips & tricks, and stories behind inspirational women. It reminded me more of a handmade book for friends (could be the illustrations) rather than other fancy cocktail books I've read. The author's puns could almost be groan-worthy (as you chuckle of course), and I think this makes a great present for women all around. Cheers to to Ms. Grashin.

This was a fun little book that would make a great gift for the feminist in your life. It includes short histories of real and fictional woman (sorry but Princess Leia is not real), along with basic bartending terminology and the appropriate equipment to stock a bar at home. With each of the histories is a wonderful illustration and a mixed drink with a feminist take, Slow Gin-der Equiality or Vagina Como-nologues for example. The recipes did not seem very unique but the presentation was nice. I also question the appropriateness of having an alcoholic beverage for Malala Yousafzai, a minor and a Sunni Muslim. Perhaps this would have been a great place to offer a non-alcoholic cocktail? Though I do give Ms. Grashin credit for recognizing the situation. So while this book is neither a deep look at feminist history and nor is it an exhaustive guide to bartending, it is a fun and quirky book that would be great on a table top at your next N.O.W. gathering!

I love quirky niche cookbooks. According to the publisher’s blurb, this one was about as quirky and as niche as they come – expressing women’s history through alcoholic beverages – so I had high hopes for the entertainment factor of the book. Unfortunately, as I’ve learned through past experience, cookbooks that are entertaining don’t necessarily have the most desirable recipes.

According to the Introduction, this book gathers a collection of “some of the most beloved classic cocktails of all time” and dedicates each one to a bad ass woman or a moment in the history of women’s liberation. The Introduction goes downhill from there as the author keeps tying it all back to drinking and getting drunk. At one point, the author also makes the completely unfortunate statement that “I can’t think of a better way to pay homage to your heroes than by getting totally drunk in their honor!” (Hmm… how about continuing their work?) Fortunately, the Introduction gets better when it takes the autobiographical turn and the author describes the genesis and evolution of this book.

The Introduction is followed by approximately seven pages of “The Essentials.” This section describes the basic tools, like jiggers and shakers, and the basic glassware that are required for a home bar. The section also includes “bar tips” and “bar terminology,” which both explain common terms that may be used in the book recipes and used in a bar to order drinks. Finally, there is a page of explanation on bitters, infusions, and syrups as additives to drinks. Overall, I felt like this section gave a decent grounding in the topics it covered to prepare a reader to proceed to the recipe sections of the book.

The heart of the book are over 160 pages of recipes, which are divided into six sections according to the main spirit used in the drink: Whiskey; Vodka; Tequila & Mezcal; Rum; Brandy & Cognac; Wine, Beer, & Cider; Other Spirits. The vast majority of the drinks are easily recognizable standards, from the whiskey-based Old Fashioned to the Pimm’s Cup. There are also a handful of curious additions to the list, like the Deception, the Amaro Sour, Zombie Housewife, and the nebulously named After Dinner Drink. However, each drink has a “punny” name with some basis in women’s history. The hot toddy recipe is named “Our Toddies, Ourselves;” the martini recipe is named “Vermouth Bader Gin’sburg;” the dirty martini recipe is named “Dirty Bettie-ni Page;” the tequila pina colada recipe is named “Frida Kahl-ada;” the tiki drink is named “The Feminine Mys-tiki;” the shandy is named “Saison Beer Anthony;” the Pimm’s Cup is named “Pimm’s DivaCup;” and so on.

Each recipe consists of a two-page spread: the left page is the recipe in a graphically designed representation of its name and the right page is an informational write up about the person or event that inspired the cocktail name. The recipe instructions can at times be a little difficult to follow because they can be incorporated into graphic design and other flourishes. The majority of the recipes are fairly standard, although some are off the beaten path. Like a Negroni with equal parts of London dry gin, sloe gin, Campari, and sweet vermouth or a Bloody Mary finished with a stout beer float or a Cosmopolitan with a full ounce of Campari or a Fuzzy Navel with a bar spoon of pomegranate molasses or a Tequila Sunrise finished with a strawberry shrub float instead of grenadine or a Dark & Stormy topped with a drop of absinthe or a Pimm’s Cup without any gin or even a Snakebite with a float of crème de cassis. For the most part, the recipe ingredients are common home bar bottles, although falernum, orgeat syrup, absinthe, and a few different amari do make their appearances.

The write ups about the people and events that inspired the cocktails are all interesting, although they vary in the level of detail. The range of choices is very broad: from the ancient Hindu deity Kali and the classic Greek drama Antigone to the very modern/topical Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elizabeth Warren. In addition to the well-known American political figures and activists, there are representatives from the art world such as Judy Chicago and the Guerrilla Girls, from the music scene such as Debbie Harry and Patti Smith, from the science world such as Mae Jemison and Dian Fossey, from the literary world such as Margaret Atwood and Toni Morrison, and from the international realm such as Hooligan Sparrow and Wangari Maathai. I was a little surprised by the number of leftists, Marxists, and socialists who were chosen for the book – Rosa Luxemburg, Alexandra Kollontai, the Weather Underground, to name a few. Each write up is concluded with a few lines of blue italics “punny” silliness to tie the individual back to the drink offered.

The Resources section is actually pretty serious as it offers suggestions for ways to get involved or to learn more about the topics discussed in the book. Websites are grouped by topic, to include a section on the author’s personal NYC favorites.

Overall, I did enjoy reading this book and would order it for some of my girlfriends for holiday gifts. The write ups of inspirational people and events were the best part of the book for me, as I didn’t quite appreciate the “let’s get drunk” theme that was running through the author’s allegedly silly commentary. The collection of cocktail recipes was very good, as I haven’t seen so many useful classic recipes organized in a single book in a long time.

I didn't know what to expect but I was impressed with the thought that went into this book. The author's detail in both her illustrations and her research was just fantastic! The puns might put some people off, but I love puns so I was there for it! This is one of those books that is going to be pushed as a gift and for once I wholeheartedly agree!