Beverages Books

This book was informative and enjoyable to read. The pictures are a huge plus. I now have a much better understanding of how the beer industry in Kansas City contributed to the success of the city. After completing this book, I could hardly get myself to the bar quickly enough to have a pint of Boulevard unfiltered wheat. And, it was great!

This book by Albert W.A. Schmid is full of interesting, historical details regarding the history of wines, beers and spirits. His Louisville roots are evident when one reads his sections on Kentucky Bourbon. Bourbon drinkers will drool! Wines are segmented "by the grape" which makes understanding the large variety of wineries and varietals very easy and simple. This book gives an excellent overview of wines, beers and spirits -- from the way they are produced to the myriad of ways they can be paired with your favorite foods!

This is a good book. It contains many delightful drink ideas. Great book for people who like to entertain. Your guest will be surprised and delighted with the drinks you serve.

Whether you're looking for a delicious coffee or chocolate drink, a variation on the usual teas, a spiced punch, or some creative uses for spirits, you'll find something in here to serve at your holiday parties. Every drink we tried from this book was wholly delicious, such as Winter Twilight, which includes pomegranate juice and Chambord. I wouldn't particularly recommend this book for folks who don't like alcohol, however, as many of the recipes, even those found outside of the obviously spirit-based chapter ("merry-making cocktails") include a fair amount of alcohol.

Other chapters include chocolates and coffees, teas tonics and tisanes, welcome cups and party punches, and winter warmers and sweet dreamers. Thankfully since this isn't a huge book it doesn't spend much space on tried-and-true recipes; instead it dives straight into some nifty and unusual temptations. One of my favorites was 'tres leches'---a concoction that includes banana, orange juice, the traditional three types of milk referred to in the title, and several other surprising ingredients. I was slightly dubious at the combination, but it was amazing! Another fantastic drink, called 'toasted caramel,' involves the sublime dulche de leche, as well as the wonderful combination of Frangelico and Amaretto.

The table of contents lists each drink by name, and the index allows you to search for drinks by ingredient. The book is small and attractive, definitely a contender if you're looking for a delicious little gift cookbook for someone. The photos are beautiful, the layout is clean and easy to use, and the recipes seem well-tested.

Quoting from the back cover:

"Andre Schwarz is a hotel manager of an international five-star hotel. He began his career in a small luxury hotel in Germany, a career that would eventually lead him from Europe to Asia and to the Middle East. In this book, he recounts some of the most memorable experiences of his career. We follow Andre from his humble beginnings as a waiter in a small luxury hotel to his first managerial position in a five-star hotel in London. He describes in explicit detail many exciting experiences that in a five-star hotel are nothing more than everyday occurrences.

"Some of his anecdotes are funny and others are shocking, but they all have one thing in common: they are true. While the stories, experiences, and anecdotes are true, the names of hotels, people, and places have been changed to protect the innocent."

As you can see by the number of pages, this is quite a lengthy memoir, and through it all, Rene Egle manages to hold your interest while relating his very unique career and travel adventures. Considering Rene knew very little English when he started work at the London hotel, he has come along way in his mastery of the English language.

If you enjoy career memoirs and travel logs, you will most like enjoy Rene Egle's Hotel - Untold Stories.

Kaye Trout
Reviewer

Great book if your interested in what wine goes with what type of food.

Easy and enjoyable to read. I learned a lot from page one. I did not feel like I was studying for a test, but painlessly absorbing interesting information about grapes. The book answered questions I didn't know I had, and explained things I had been wondering about for years, like how to spit at a tasting.

For any reader seeking to learn about wine tasting, you're in luck because there a dozen or more books available on this topic and this particular book is an excellent one.

The book is well organized and nicely covers all of the basics in appraising a wine. After first describing how to approach and evaluate a wine from the perspective of its appearance, aromas and taste on the palate, the book then offers insights into putting this knowledge into practice with different types of wine. Subsequent, brief (2 to 4 pages each) sections cover: tasting Young white wines; White wines for laying down; Red wines; Young red wines; Aged red wines; Rose wines, Sweet wines; Vin janes; Sparkling wines and other kinds of wines. But, it doesn't stop there; it offers tasting insights for armagnac, cognac, malt whiskey, and rum, each in its own sections.

Most books on wine tasting are written for the average consumer, with a small number diving into the topic much more extensively, written mainly for wine professionals. This book is clearly written for the wine consumer, although it offers some insights a professional would likely find worthy and useful.

While I rated it 5 stars, my true rating for this book is 4.5. It's not the perfect book on wine tasting, however, it is an excellent one and most readers would learn a lot, likely everything they need to know, from this book. I highlight all books I read and this one ended up with a lot of highlighting, a characteristic I find very indicative of a book's merit in hindsight. Highly recommended.

Mark Vincent

If you are serious about recording (and drinking) your wine collection this book by Hugh Johnson is a must. It contains details on cellaring techniques, bottle and glass shapes as well as a history of cellaring. Most importantly it contains information on how to structure your cellar i.e. where to put your bottles.

First and foremost this book is for recording your wines - their location in the cellar, where you purchased them, cost price, quantity, tasted date and most importantly, what they tasted like. It contains a mass of pages for recording your case lots, as well as a large section for recording individual bottles as they pass through your cellar.

Resist the temptation to get software to manage your cellar, get this book and enjoy the relaxed pleasure of maintaining your catalogue with the old fashioned medium of pen and paper, and a suitably filled glass in the other hand.

I note that Vocoret has been dropped in the 1997 edition as a best maker.Anybody know why? Also where on earth is"COTE DE BEANES"