Cocktail Chemistry

What a fun and fantastic way to re-orient yourself and not only a variety of cocktails, but the science behind the tools, the glassware, and the basic ingredients.

This year a group of friends and I have really gotten into diversifying our palette when it comes to mixed drinks and cocktails. In addition we are huge Movie goers, I love anything that pairs well with the movie. As part of our hundred movie challenge of the year, these were a great addition to creating cocktails that fit our movie bill.


I think my favorite part was the exploration of the glassware. Recently and I inherited a variety of cocktail glasses, and bar ware for my grandfather. Glassware varieties from coups, brandy glasses, pub cups, and martini glasses have made it fun to serve up these amazing cocktails.

This book in particular, did a great job of photos, and step-by-step variations of some well-known drinks. I also really appreciated the simple steps in the beginning of the book to help you set up some of your own home made mixers.

As a Chemical Engineer and Cocktail fan, this book was wonderful. It had me making some drinks and using techniques that I had never tried before.

Well written, any fan of mixed drinks I think will enjoy this book (I may be planning on getting it for a friend for Christmas already). My only complaint is I wish I had some of the tools that they used in the book, and that this could be a book that you slowly work up to doing all of the mixes.

What I didn’t try, that I would like to, is to make these drinks as Mocktails (there are some companies working on new non-alcoholic versions of alcohol all the time) as a way to really work on some of the techniques without the alcohol. Some of us work or, you know, just need a lot of practice and don’t want to pay for the alcohol… that stuff isn’t cheap. At least, the good stuff isn’t.

If you are thinking about getting this book and you enjoy cocktails, pick this thing up and try something. It is an experience, and the author has done his homework supremely well.

I received a copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.