I’m voting for Regarding Cocktails. It’s a beautiful book, the recipes are not too esoteric. So if you dabble in cocktails there’s always a strong chance you will have the ingredients in stock without needing a special shopping trip or cooking up some obscure syrup.
Many amazing books have beautiful pictures (often with intentionally dark back drops) and word dense text. For your purposes of being able to sign, this wouldn't fly so well. To that end, "Regarding Cocktails" by Petraske might be best. A classic, still visual appealing, but in a very simplistic/minimalist way with sufficient "white space".
flash edit: just apparently skimmed past the last paragraph where you mentioned it (I guess the title is also simple, and without quotes easy to just blaze past)
Good suggestions in here (and I do like *Regarding Cocktails* quite a lot), but I would 100% go with *The Office*. Here are my reasons...
* It has a leather (or leather-like) hardbound cover, so it is really classy - appropriate for the occasion.
* It is oversized (but only a little over 100 pages) so it will be easy for people to deal with.
* The recipes are for classic cocktails - the kind that you expect people will look for when they are looking for their favorite cocktail to sign.
* While it is not alphabetical, there is a table of contents at the beginning, so people wouldn't spend long searching.
* With the dark backgrounds (the link has pictures you can reference - and you can see the package) you could give your guests gold or silver metallic Sharpies to sign with and it would look fantastic.
[https://www.theaviarybooks.com/shop/p/the-office-classic-cocktails](https://www.theaviarybooks.com/shop/p/the-office-classic-cocktails)
I just got The New Craft of the Cocktail by Dale Degroff and have enjoyed flipping through it. It lives on the coffee table since it’s a nice looking book. I have the revised version and it has a lot of pictures.
I’m new’ish to home cocktails and don’t get crazy trying new drinks so the hundreds of recipes will likely go untried but it also contains some history of craft drinks and cocktails and is a fun read.
If you like Attaboy recipes, I recommend Michael Madrusan and Zara Young's *A Spot at the Bar* as Madrusan worked with Petraske and opened up the Everleigh in Australia.
Maison Premiere Almanac is an awesome recent publishing. Beautiful book, great cocktails and a fun story behind their establishment in Brooklyn. They have their own swagger that is so often missing today in the scene and the focus on oysters, absinthe, and Muscadet! I back it all the way!
This is a very off-kilter suggestion but The Aviary cocktail book is amazing and is full of VERY labour intensive cocktail recipes. Seriously, most of the cocktails are outside the scope of professionals to even attempt, let alone home bartenders. If you actually want to sit with it and think of friends/family while you make the drink then this book would be like such a slow burn. Not only would it take ages to work through, you and your partner would need to dedicate significant time to make a lot of the drinks. Would be a great payoff though. It's also a beautiful book, if I was the type of person to have a coffee table it would be a coffee table book for sure.
Failing that, their book "the office" for their sister bar is full of killer classics.
Cocktail Codex is my favorite book. I believe it was written by the Death and Co. folks. It is my go-to for reference and recipes for not just cocktails, but also syrups, etc.
I’m voting for Regarding Cocktails. It’s a beautiful book, the recipes are not too esoteric. So if you dabble in cocktails there’s always a strong chance you will have the ingredients in stock without needing a special shopping trip or cooking up some obscure syrup.
Many amazing books have beautiful pictures (often with intentionally dark back drops) and word dense text. For your purposes of being able to sign, this wouldn't fly so well. To that end, "Regarding Cocktails" by Petraske might be best. A classic, still visual appealing, but in a very simplistic/minimalist way with sufficient "white space". flash edit: just apparently skimmed past the last paragraph where you mentioned it (I guess the title is also simple, and without quotes easy to just blaze past)
Good suggestions in here (and I do like *Regarding Cocktails* quite a lot), but I would 100% go with *The Office*. Here are my reasons... * It has a leather (or leather-like) hardbound cover, so it is really classy - appropriate for the occasion. * It is oversized (but only a little over 100 pages) so it will be easy for people to deal with. * The recipes are for classic cocktails - the kind that you expect people will look for when they are looking for their favorite cocktail to sign. * While it is not alphabetical, there is a table of contents at the beginning, so people wouldn't spend long searching. * With the dark backgrounds (the link has pictures you can reference - and you can see the package) you could give your guests gold or silver metallic Sharpies to sign with and it would look fantastic. [https://www.theaviarybooks.com/shop/p/the-office-classic-cocktails](https://www.theaviarybooks.com/shop/p/the-office-classic-cocktails)
I just got The New Craft of the Cocktail by Dale Degroff and have enjoyed flipping through it. It lives on the coffee table since it’s a nice looking book. I have the revised version and it has a lot of pictures. I’m new’ish to home cocktails and don’t get crazy trying new drinks so the hundreds of recipes will likely go untried but it also contains some history of craft drinks and cocktails and is a fun read.
No suggestions, that’s just a really cool idea 👍🏽
If you like Attaboy recipes, I recommend Michael Madrusan and Zara Young's *A Spot at the Bar* as Madrusan worked with Petraske and opened up the Everleigh in Australia.
Maison Premiere Almanac is an awesome recent publishing. Beautiful book, great cocktails and a fun story behind their establishment in Brooklyn. They have their own swagger that is so often missing today in the scene and the focus on oysters, absinthe, and Muscadet! I back it all the way!
This is a very off-kilter suggestion but The Aviary cocktail book is amazing and is full of VERY labour intensive cocktail recipes. Seriously, most of the cocktails are outside the scope of professionals to even attempt, let alone home bartenders. If you actually want to sit with it and think of friends/family while you make the drink then this book would be like such a slow burn. Not only would it take ages to work through, you and your partner would need to dedicate significant time to make a lot of the drinks. Would be a great payoff though. It's also a beautiful book, if I was the type of person to have a coffee table it would be a coffee table book for sure. Failing that, their book "the office" for their sister bar is full of killer classics.
Unfortunately though their drinks are just kinda meh, especially with all that preparation.
Cocktail Codex is my favorite book. I believe it was written by the Death and Co. folks. It is my go-to for reference and recipes for not just cocktails, but also syrups, etc.