sonetart

It would be easy to dismiss Jason Wilson as a spirits snob. His rants about populist vodka and adoration of the obscure certainly rings of snobbishness. But that's just on the surface. Sprinkled throughout the length of the book, Wilson admits to all sorts of un-hip, un-snob likes and dislikes. And while he may be friends with some true snobs, I think his own self-applied label is spot-on: geek. Geeks are great. Geeks have strong opinions for one reason only - they're really into things. If a geek says he's over the moon about an expensive Calvados, it's not because he thinks it will sound cool. It's because he really, really likes it. And he's not only going to like it, he'll know why he likes it. He'll have had the experience with other Calvadoses (Calvodii?) to know a good one. This book starts off very strong with great humor and it's a breeze to get about halfway through it on sheer momentum alone. I found that I bogged down a bit in the Italian section. I'm sure everyone else will find other parts they enjoy more than others. But it's a short book, and your stamina for paragraph after paragraph of descriptions of aperitifs and digestifs is only tested in short spurts. As for the snobs, I get the feeling Wilson is treading a careful line here. Obviously, he's in cahoots with some of the more extreme elements of the traditional cocktail revival. So he's not going to out-and-out insult them. But I think he gives an even hand to the whole "vodka debate". I love his quote from Audrey Saunders of the Pegu Club: "If someone wants a vodka drink, give 'em a vodka drink. Who are we making drinks for? Are we fascists?" There is a great selection of cocktails in this book - few that you'll not have already seen in other classic cocktail books, but I gained some fresh insight into some of them. You could also read this as a primer for a variety of base spirits. Good stuff!

2022-10-21 05:47