Jordan Kaye

I recently saw Jordan Kaye at a book festival where he demonstrated making a few of the cocktails from his book (one of which I got to taste test--yum!); he was both personable and funny, and mentioned that he was married with children (I think he said "two."). But I found the book to be more of a statement about the authors' distress over having to grow up than a useful, amusing advisory on matching cocktails with common social situations.

The book is subtitled: Exquisite Cocktails & Unsound Advice, which is pretty accurate, so I cannot say the book didn't live up to the title's expectations. But its attitude displayed too much college frat boy prankishness ,and featured too few situations in which I expect to find myself. In addition, some of the most useful advice--such as primers on types of spirits and basic mixing techniques--is poorly presented and hard to find (it is scattered throughout the book, and there is no index). As long as you prefer gin and whisky drinks to vodka, as the authors do, the recipes are very good; however, you may be better off getting them from a standard bar book rather than wading through the adolescent advice presented here.

The drinking situations include "bedding down the homely," (for which the authors recommend a Dry Gin Martini because it somehow represents "selflessness" and "hedonism.") In addition, they thoughtfully warn the reader that "You cannot f**k ugly in the morning." Apparently there is no drink good enough for that. Other situations warranting imbibing include stalking your ex, participating in a threesome, calling in sick just so that you can listen to NPR (?), drinking while you're pregnant(a chapter called, "Mom drank with me..and I'm fine"), drunk dialing, participating in a threesome, being with people you despise, putting down the family pet (gah!),and the final drink to enjoy on your death bed (a Rob Roy, in case you were curious).

Of course I've been focusing only on the negative. They also include drinks for meeting with old friends, high school reunions, getting married, and others. But for me, the negative outweighed the positive and even though I was aware that the authors meant it to be tongue-in-cheek, I didn't feel the funny. I'll still try the drinks--and perhaps I'll even manage to invent a drink that will make reading this book more of a pleasure.… (plus d'informations)