William L. Hamilton loves a good gimlet. Rose's and lime. Straight up.
Perfectly iced. Make the glass pretty too. "It ruined my reputation for
thinking before I speak," he writes of that love. "I accept the trade-
off." Like Lewis Carroll's Alice, when Hamilton sees it, he drinks it --
and tells the incredible tale.
In "Shaken and Stirred," his biweekly Sunday Styles column, now an
original book of his drinking adventures, the intrepid New York Times
reporter offers a gimlet-eyed look at contemporary culture through the
panoptic view of a cocktail glass. From the venerable martini to the
young Dirty Jane, Hamilton shares his tip on the sip.
You hold in your hands a guide to "how it goes down." Not a cocktail
manual or a Baedeker to the bar scene but a drinker's guide to drinking.
These are four-ounce adventures of cocktails and the people who make
them, from the bartenders and chefs to the patrons, the politicians and
the power players of the liquor industry.
There are tales of the Champagne high life, the Long Island Iced Tea
low life; men like Dr. Brown and his celery soda, and women like Eve
and her Apple Martini. Hamilton's weekly Runyanesque rounds cover all
the watering holes and their poisons, from the East Side's Southside
to the Incredible Hulk in the Bronx, and monitors the latest trends,
from the ultra-premium vodka wars to the Red Bull market. Shaken and
Stirred is a report on a popular culture that comes alive after five,
when the mood turns social and the moment is sweet (or sour, or bitter,
or dry).
Hamilton has also picked up the best (or the most unbelievable) cocktail
recipes from bars, lounges and restaurants in New York City and beyond.
There is common sense and creativity in the classics, and new inventions
with their eye on the prize, such as the Huckleberry Ginn and the
Bleeding Heart. "drink me," said the bottle in Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland. Hamilton has, in every instance, and bottled his thoughts
in sixty-four essays that are as readable as they are drinkable. Mix a
gimlet, or a Minnesota Anti-Freeze, or a Gibson or a Bone. And spend
a night in, on the town.
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