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A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails
Crown
August 2006
On Sale: July 25, 2006
304 pages
ISBN: 1400051673
EAN: 9781400051670
Hardcover
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Historical | Non-Fiction
One spirit, Ten cocktails, and Four Centuries of American
History
And a Bottle of Rum tells the
raucously entertaining story of America as seen through the
bottom of a drinking glass. With a chapter for each of ten
cocktails--from the grog sailors drank on the high seas in
the 1700s to the mojitos of modern club hoppers--Wayne
Curtis reveals that the homely spirit once distilled from
the industrial waste of the exploding sugar trade has
managed to infiltrate every stratum of New World society.
Curtis takes us from the taverns of the American
colonies, where rum delivered both a cheap wallop and cash
for the Revolution, to the plundering pirate ships off the
coast of Central America, to the watering holes of
pre-Castro Cuba, and to the kitsch-laden tiki bars of 1950s
America. Here are sugar barons and their armies conquering
the Caribbean, Paul Revere stopping for a nip during his
famous ride, Prohibitionists marching against "demon rum,"
Hemingway fattening his liver with Havana daiquiris, and
today's bartenders reviving old favorites like Planter's
Punch. In an age of microbrewed beer and single-malt
whiskeys, rum--once the swill of the common man--has found
its way into the tasting rooms of the most discriminating
drinkers.
Awash with local color and wry humor,
And a Bottle of Rum is an affectionate toast to this
most American of liquors, a chameleon spirit that has been
constantly reinvented over the centuries by tavern keepers,
bootleggers, lounge lizards, and marketing gurus. Complete
with cocktail recipes for would-be epicurean time-travelers,
this is history at its most intoxicating.
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