Skip to main content

The Manual may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site.

This $25 book can make you a more creative, expert home bartender (really!)

One book to rule them all, and it's by a familiar author

The Garden Mojito from Citrus Club.
Citrus Club

The rise of mixology and bartending in the last decade has made the spotting of a cocktail bar a common occurrence. Instead of simply pubs, bars, and grills serving up watered down mixed drinks, from Tampa to Temecula, you’ll find the US dotted with more cocktail bars than any of us will ever get a chance to visit. This rise in cocktail culture has also led to a surge in the popularity of home cocktailing. This means more and more drinkers are utfitting home bar carts and stocking them with various bottles of whiskey, rum, tequila, and other spirits as well as shakers, strainers, hand-juicers, jiggers, all types of cocktail glasses, and a library of cocktail books. Did we mention that the rise of mixology has also led to the publication of any type of booze-related book you’d ever need?

Recommended Videos

The problem with this literary profusion is that, even if you’re trying to add to your cocktail knowledge, you don’t need all of these books. You don’t need the overly complex, ridiculously elaborate books featuring over-the-top ingredients you’ll never have in your home. You do, however, need some helpful books that are designed to simplify the cocktail experience. Lucky for you, you don’t have to spend an afternoon perusing the aisles at your local independent bookstore or scrolling for hours on online book seller’s site. We did the work for you and found the one book you need.

From New York Times bestselling author, chef, and personality Michael Ruhlman (well-known for his book ‘The Making of a Chef’) comes a fresh take on classic cocktails called ‘The Book of Cocktail Ratios’. A must-have for any home bartender, Ruhlman breaks down the basics of cocktailing and makes it obvious that you don’t need an advanced degree to perfect some of your favorite drinks.

On top of the basics, he details the similarities and differences between your favorite drinks and details how changing one or two ingredients can turn it into a totally different classic cocktail. As the title suggests, crafting delicious, flavorful mixed drinks is all about ratios.

On top of the information included, the book contains beautiful illustrations of the various drinks and ingredient wheels used to explain how drinks like the margarita, sidecar, between the sheets, and cosmopolitan are related.

“The bulk of the book is devoted to isolating five primary cocktails and their many variations: The Manhattan, The Negroni, The Daiquiri, The Margarita, and The Martini, along with forays into highballs and some worthy cocktails outside ratio-based cocktails,” Ruhlman says on his website.

All in all, this book was created to explain that paying attention to the ratios of ingredients is the easiest way to simplify a cocktail. That’s it. In a world where it seems like bartenders are crafting uncomfortably elaborate drinks using shrubs, tinctures, and ingredients you’ll never have a real grasp on, this easy-to-follow, wonderfully detailed, simple handbook is a breath of fresh air. It’s a must-have for your burgeoning home bar book collection.

Christopher Osburn
Christopher Osburn is a food and drinks writer located in the Finger Lakes Region of New York. He's been writing professional
Does cold brew coffee have more caffeine? Why it might be giving you the jitters
Comparing caffeine in cold brew to other types of coffee
Cold brew coffee

One of the best things about cold brew coffee is its smoothness. The smooth taste and low acidity make cold brew coffee too easy to slurp down if I'm not paying close attention. Though cold brew coffee is both delicious and refreshing, it's also reasonably high in caffeine which can hit you quickly if you're casually sipping on cold brew without considering the caffeine content.

If you've ever gotten carried away and enjoyed your cold brew a little too much, you may have faced the coffee jitters (I know I have), leading you to wonder just how much caffeine is in cold brew coffee. It's been great to see so many coffee companies emerging with decaf cold brew options I can enjoy without feeling so restless. But does cold brew coffee have more caffeine than your average cup of hot coffee? Or, more caffeine than iced coffee? Let's explore.
Does cold brew have more caffeine?

Read more
An expert’s tips on making this season’s trending coffee cocktails at home
Coffee Beans

When you think of coffee cocktails, there's one drink that stands out immediately: the Espresso Martini. But there are plenty of other ways to incorporate coffee into your cocktails, and recently there has been a TikTok trend for sweet, dessert-like coffee cocktails.

If you fancy trying some of these out for yourself, Patrick Pistolesi, master mixologist at NIO Cocktails, has shared tips on how to recreate some of the most popular viral TikTok-inspired coffee cocktails at home.

Read more
A beginner’s guide to sweet red wines: Why they’re more exciting than you think
It's not just for red meat anymore
Glass of red wine with fruit and ice on table

When it comes to wine, it's really more about the exceptions than the rules. You could be forgiven for thinking that a glass of red should be robust like a Bordeaux or earthy like a California cab. At any rate, it should be "dry," right? Oh, no, budding wine enthusiast. I'm here to tell you about some red wines that are literally toothsome. It all started when I had my first glass of a fizzy, sweet Lambrusco, along with an Italian dessert pastry featuring dark chocolate and burnt meringue, and life got noticeably better.

Let's start with the basics: What makes a wine sweet? The answer is simple -- the amount of residual sugar left after fermentation. Grapes tend to be sweet, after all, and yeast eats sugar to produce (among other things) alcohol. By stalling the fermentation process (or back sweetening the result), a wine can taste sweet, regardless of whether the grape varietal is red or white. (There's also a thing called "noble rot," scientifically known as botrytis cinerea. Although it's a fungus, it imparts a distinctive sweetness to wines and therefore we love it.) Let's visit the wonderful world of sweet red wine.
Sparkling sweet reds: It's a thing

Read more