The best spirits and cocktail books for Christmas

Tiny Cocktails by Tyler Zielinski

£13, Random House

Small serves have become common on cocktail lists in these moderation-minded times but their benefits go beyond merely reducing alcohol consumption. As Tyler Zielinski explains in the introduction to his book Tiny Cocktails, smaller drinks are all about flavour – a way to experience more before the booze gets to you but also a better format for cocktails that are best enjoyed ice cold or are rich and indulgent. And if you’re contemplating mixing a rare or expensive ingredient, a little goes a long way when you’re only filling a tiny glass.

Across its 60 cocktail recipes, Tiny Cocktails showcases these benefits while introducing home bartenders to an array of accessible techniques, the occasional unusual ingredient and more than a few bite-sized nuggets of drinks history too. The recipes are handily arranged by occasion – Amuse Bouches, Nightcaps and Little Luxuries – and are beautifully presented with photography by Eric Medsker. There’s a useful amount of information about how to source appropriately sized glassware for your tiny creations too.

Alongside Zielinski’s own miniature inventions – inspired riffs on classics that introduce new flavours to familiar drinks – there are contributions from some of the world’s top bartenders, including Ryan Chetiyawardana, Iain McPherson and Christine Wiseman.

With instructions for homemade ingredients, and suggestions for cocktail flights, the drinks are all achievable by a home bartender, with enough complexity and wow-factor to impress guests. With its explanations on everything from fat washing to shaking techniques, and no shortage of flavour and cocktail inspiration, Zielinski’s book has plenty to offer cocktail aficionados creating drinks of any size.

Clinton Cawood

Tequila: A Tasting Course by Millie Milliken

£16, Dorling Kindersley

Tequila is having a moment. In the UK last year, according to the Wine and Spirit Trade Association, sales of the spirit had risen by 83% compared to pre-Covid levels. That makes the latest in Dorling Kindersley’s spirits courses, this time written by respected drinks journalist Millie Milliken, particularly timely. For a spirit that most of us will have been introduced to as teenagers alongside salt and lime, there’s a lot to discover – about its history, production and designations, as well as why it deserves to be savoured and respected.

Thorough research and meticulous attention to detail gives the book breadth. It’s the kind of book you can dip into – to find out about different types of Tequila and their geography, for example, or how the spirit is made, to uncover its history, explore its significance in Mexican culture or to understand how production is becoming more sustainable. While the ‘course’ offers a comprehensive sweep of the subject, it manages to do so without becoming a dry textbook on the subject thanks to simple illustrations and Milliken’s writing style. No mean feat.

Likewise, Milliken must have undertaken an impressive tasting of Tequila in order to select the 100 she includes here, complete with tasting notes. As she writes in her guide on how to taste Tequila, the idea is to have fun – one imagines she may have done. That sense is only confirmed throughout the rest of the book, including the section on food pairings, a suite of Tequila cocktail recipes, and, yes, even a page on Tequila shots.

Johanna Derry Hall

The World Whisky Tour by Joel Harrison

£17, Mitchell Beazley

The pleasure of discovering more about the people and places behind our favourite bottles is helping to drive a boom in drinks tourism, whether that be a wander around a vineyard, staying on a producer’s estate or dropping in at a distillery. Against this backdrop, The Whisky World Tour is a particularly timely release, taking dram fans around the world in search of whisky’s best visitor experiences. The result is a guide to 52 standout distilleries, from the best of Kentucky to Kanosuke in Japan, and everywhere in between.

This is the seventh book written by Joel Harrison, Club Oenologique’s contributing spirits editor, and his first as solo author. Naturally, he is more than knowledgeable enough to deliver insightful and engaging chapters on his chosen destinations but he also has the palate to supplement them with tasting notes on the key whiskies from each producer. Combine that with his enthusiastic and accessible writing style, and you have a consummate tour guide for company, one who’ll introduce you to the history, people and bottlings of the world’s most diverse and diverting whisky distilleries – and provide some personal perspective along the way.

The book is handsomely designed and there’s plenty of – often dramatic – photography to further bring each distillery to life and lure you into booking a visit. Whether an around-the-world-trip taken from the comfort of the sofa or a bar booth, a tool for creating a travel itinerary or a way of discovering new whiskies from across the globe, The Whisky World Tour is a great partner for any dram lover with a passion for place and provenance.

William Morris

Savour by Kristiane Westray

£11, Bloomsbury

At the very beginning of Savour is an illustration of a cartoon figure standing on rooftops shouting: ‘Whisky is for everyone!’. It absolutely sums up the approach, tone and content of this delightful book, the thread that runs throughout this passionate and joyful guide to the spirit. Kristiane Westray, also the author of Club O’s Scotch Whisky Report, has undeniable enthusiasm.

In clear and warm language, she sets out her guide to tasting, collecting and drinking whisky. It’s global in reach (there are whiskies made on every continent except Antarctica) and comprehensive in scope without being dense or overwhelming. Westray highlights flavour as paramount in the enjoyment of whisky and emphatically reminds us that we each have our own flavour preferences. She yearns for savoury treats, she tells us, while her girlfriend ‘has a far sweeter tooth’. All of this is permission-giving. Anything goes. Want to add cola to your single malt? Give it a try. Happy to sip it neat? Good for you.

Keeping overwhelming detail and instruction means there is inevitably some restraint; Westray restricts recipes for whisky cocktails to three: the Highball, Old Fashioned and Irish Coffee. Her list of producers is limited to ‘modern makers’ from around the world – broadly, those who began making whisky this century.

There’s lots to recommend this book as a gateway to understanding and appreciation of whisky. Nevertheless, though the book, like whisky, is for everyone, those who might appreciate it most are the whisky-curious and the whisky-adjacent; people who want to try but don’t know where to begin, who want to be able to hold their own in conversations about whisky or are interested in investing without getting scammed. Savour covers all these bases and, more than that, will hopefully generate a new cohort of more diverse whisky enthusiasts in the process. As Westray writes, ‘it’s a call to grab a glass and join in.’

Johanna Derry Hall

House of Whisky and Bourbon by Andy Clarke

£12, Quadrille

Following on from House of Gin, Andy Clarke invites you to join him in the House of Whisky and Bourbon, a welcoming, informal space for the whisky-curious and for budding home bartenders. Dispelling any myths that whisky shouldn’t be mixed, the pages of this book showcase the cocktail potential of the whiskies of the world in a light, accessible and thoroughly practical way.

After some basics – a short history of whisky, a basic introduction to various whisky styles and how they’re made, and some tips on glassware, garnishes and more – House of Whisky and Bourbon gets into the heart of the matter: cocktails. These tend towards the easy and uncomplicated, with only the occasional unusual ingredient, and just a handful of homemade syrups and the like. A section entitled Easy Entertaining doubles down on simplicity, with unfussy serves suited to batch production for parties.

The recipes – more than 40 of them in total – cover significant breadth when it comes to styles and flavours, from Picklebacks to hot serves with cloudy apple juice, and everything in between. These are presented with lots of useful info, including dominant flavours and associated seasons, with ingredient proportions as well as measurements in millilitres and ounces. Each drink is accompanied by a little history or a personal anecdote from Clarke, with vintage-style illustrations alongside each serve.

In all, this is an ideal introduction for someone beginning their journey into the world of whisky, and a handy source of inspiration for inventive yet approachable serves for your next gathering.

Clinton Cawood

Another Round? by Steven Parissien

£11, August Books

What does what we drink say about who and how we are? In a fascinating gallivant around the drinking habits of post-war Britain, Steven Parissien’s Another Round? explores just that via 12 famous alcoholic drinks.

Choosing drinks that are representative of a moment, he manages to capture the mood of the time: Watney’s Red is the vehicle for the broader tale of British cask ale production. The gradual loss of antipathy to all things German through the 1970s is told by Blue Nun. The popularity of Beaujolais Nouveau sums up the ‘loadsamoney’ attitudes of Britain under Thatcher and the attitudes of the 1990s are explored through the creation of WKD. Bringing it to the present day, he wonders about the growth in popularity of the Italian brand Aperol in the wake of the Brexit vote.

The facts are fascinating and come thick and fast. Babycham, for example, was the first alcoholic drink advertised on television in the UK and the first of its kind in this country to be marketed squarely at women, who seized on the drink as an inexpensive moment of glamour in a country weighed down by post-war austerity.

But it’s Parissien’s storytelling that makes the drinks totemic of bigger cultural moves. Such that, as you drink your tiny annual glass of Harvey’s Bristol Cream sherry this Christmas, you’ll be amazed to realise that it’s really a metaphor for mid-20th century British industry and society. Far-fetched? Whatever you’re drinking this festive season, Parissien will convincingly persuade you that our most recent history is to be found at the bottom of a glass.

Johanna Derry Hall

Galaxy Bar Cocktails by Natasha Sideris

£65, Galaxy Bar

Despite only opening in 2019, Dubai’s Galaxy Bar quickly created its place in contemporary cocktail history as a pioneering bar in the Middle East. Within 18 months, it was named Campari’s ‘One to Watch’ at the 2020 World’s 50 Best Bars ceremony – the bar industry’s equivalent of the Oscars – and for the three years following, it climbed its way to a spot on the prestigious list. The release of Galaxy Bar Cocktails, a recap of the bar’s work to date, is a way to immortalise all the good work they’ve done so far.

Fittingly, given the bar’s tasteful opulence, it’s as much a coffee table book as it is about innovative recipes. Its textbook-like size and luxurious aesthetic begins with the cover, while inside, cocktail lovers will discover recipes that don’t pull any punches. Indeed, this book doesn’t care as much about appealing to entry-level home bartenders as it does accurately expressing the quality of the cocktails served at the bar.

After an intro filled with the bar’s origin story, terminology to know, kit to have and a guide to its exquisite glassware, cocktails are divided into five chapters, ranging from ‘exotic and intense’ to ‘smooth and indulgent’. Each recipe features the skill level required to create the drink, the recommended glassware, the flavour profile to expect, the primary technique used to craft the drink and more.

Cocktails such as the Guardian of the Galaxy, a whisky highball, are as easy as they come – even though ‘easy’ involves force-carbonating your own soda. More intricate serves, such as the Dancing in the Moonlight, showcase the layers of preparation required in their seemingly minimalist cocktails.

Galaxy Bar Cocktails invites readers to bring the style, taste and elegance of the Galaxy Bar into the home. For bartender colleagues curious about the drinks that helped put the bar on the map, this debut book is really a tell-all on how to craft world-class cocktails. Regardless of how you intend to use it, Galaxy Bar Cocktails is proof that Dubai’s brightest star continues to shine – one page and one pour at a time.

Tyler Zielinski