Ten years ago, when David Wondrich signed on as Editor-in-Chief and Noah Rothbaum as Associate Editor of the Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails, an attempt to trap between the covers of a book everything that had been learned on the topic during the twin revolutions in mixology and distilling that came in with the 21st century, the duo thought they had a pretty good handle on the industry and its history.
They didn’t. In fact, for a lot of stuff, nobody did. The histories of spirits and cocktails, it turns out, are full of yawning holes, things that nobody ever investigated, or if they did, they published their research in obscure Lithuanian technical journals.
Please join Dave and Noah for a lively and anecdotal look at some of the known unknowns of the drinks world and how they and their contributors tried to plug some of these vexing gaps in our collective knowledge, large and small—everything from the origin of rum to the effects of World War II on American whisky to why it doesn’t matter whether you spell it “whiskey” or “whisky.” (Their book finally came out last year, by the way. The American Library Association gave it their Dartmouth Medal for best reference book of the year.)
Happy hour to follow!
A 2022 Rochester Cocktail Revival Seminar. Sponsored by Heaven Hill Distillery. Wednesday, June 8, 5:30pm at Jackrabbit Club, 40 Anderson Avenue.
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