Do you really need me to tell you anything more about Jim Meehan’s new PDT Cocktail Book other than Gaz Regan has called it the best book of its kind published thus far this century? You do? Okay then, here’s a bit more.
Let’s start with the fact that it works for amateurs and professionals alike, since in addition to a massive collection of well-laid out drink recipes, a surprisingly large number of which can be easily executed by anyone with a reasonably stocked bar — as opposed to so many cocktail books that call for esoteric ingredients you can only find on the south coast of Bali — there are also sections on bar design and setting up the back bar. Add in the fact that the recipes all call for name brand spirits, an implicit acknowledgement that rums and tequilas and whiskeys can vary greatly. And garnish with a layout so friendly to the eye that it makes you want to read the book like a novel.
That should be enough. If it’s not, how about this? Dale “King Cocktail” DeGroff likes it enough to add it to “Recommended” list, the first such addition he’s made since the 2010 publication of Tony Abou-Ganim’s The Modern Mixologist.