What to read to make and drink better cocktails

livemint.com:

This article is part of our Summer reads series. Visit the full collection for book lists, guest essays and more seasonal distractions. “Anyone can make good cocktails," wrote David Embury, a tax attorney with a hobby of drinking and studying them.

“The art of mixing drinks is no deep and jealously guarded secret." However, he pointed out, few people have a go—and that remains as true as it was in 1948, the year his classic “The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks" was published. That is a shame. Nearly as much history, culture and science can be found in cocktails as in cuisine.

Do not be too put off by the theatre and skill on display in the modern, snazzy cocktail bar: the craft is approachable and can be learned by doing, starting with a few basic skills and guiding principles. Though each of these books contains plenty of recipes, this list is not a selection of favourite mixtures. Embury also wrote that out of every 100 recipes in a book “perhaps three or four will be really good and another half dozen can be made respectable by readjusting proportions." The rest, he said, were “conceived in ignorance".

These are the books to banish that ignorance; to think analytically about all the components of cocktails, and thereby to readjust those proportions; to hone the techniques of the efficient (and occasionally theatrical) barkeep; and to get coupette-sized doses of all that history and cocktail culture. The Joy of Mixology. By Gary Regan.