Everything You Need to Know About How to Make All the Drinks that Matter

The Cocktail Edit

Hot Dinners Best Cookbooks of 2022The Times &lsquo;Best Food Books of 2022&rsquo; The Daily Telegraph &lsquo;Best Drink Gifts&rsquo; "Beautiful... a classy, classic book." &ndash; Diana Henry"A really lovely and well thought out piece of work that will be well used." &ndash; Dave Broom, author of The Way of Whisky"We don&rsquo;t have the cupboard full of recondite bitters and liqueurs that so many mixologists expect of us. So Alice Lascelles has tackled the problem straight-on and produced a neat edit of more than 100 drinks that rely on just a few core ingredients." &ndash; Tony Turnbull, The TimesCocktails should be simple. Acclaimed drinks writer Alice Lascelles knows everything there is to know about making delicious drinks at home with minimal equipment and fuss.The Cocktail Edit is built around a &lsquo;capsule collection&rsquo; of 12 classic cocktails &ndash; each of these is followed by six twists, plus tips and inspiration for creating many more. The book also offers essential advice on getting your home bar set up &ndash; and shows how easy it is to make amazing cocktails with just a few basic tools, ingredients and techniques. It&rsquo;s a guide brimming with trade secrets on everything from choosing the best-value spirits to making cocktails for a party; written in a conversational style, and illustrated with beautiful photography, The Cocktail Edit is practical, opinionated and fun.

Alice combines a curious eye with a fine appreciation of flavour.

Reading The Cocktail Edit made me want to go into the back of the cupboard and make something I&rsquo;d never tried before. It might be the only cocktail book you&#39;ll ever need.

If you don&rsquo;t know Alice&rsquo;s writing you have pleasure ahead of you. Her enthusiasm for her subject is warm and infectious &ndash; her writing lucid, expert and funny.

A wonderful collection of drinks recipes that satisfy the palate and inspire creativity.

Alice Lascelles knows everything there is to know about drinks and I&#39;ve got no doubt this will be the usual high calibre offering she always delivers... It&#39;s the kind of practical advice that really stays with you and this book will offer much the same.

With recipes built around 12 classic cocktails, acclaimed drinks writer Alice Lascelles offers twists, tips, and trade secrets for crafting stunning cocktails with minimal fuss.

Check out the book. Lascelles is winningly enthusiastic but authoritative.

Niki Segnit, author of The Flavour Thesaurus

Alice Lascelles is an award-winning journalist, author, presenter and drinks expert, who has been covering the drinks industry in all its forms for almost 20 years. She writes a popular drinks column for the Financial Times and can often be found talking about drinks on the TV and Radio 4 programmes including Kitchen Cabinet and The Food Programme. She is a former winner of the Fortnum &amp; Mason Drinks Writer of the Year and IWSC Spirits Communicator of the Year and has also been shortlisted for the Guild of Food Writer Awards and Louis Roederer Wine Writer Awards several times.

Alice Lascelles

Positively paradigmatic&hellip;The writing is crisply clever but, at the same time, so warmly engaging and witty&hellip;the photography is rapturously beautiful. I absolutely love this book.

&lsquo;I could say a Martini requires nothing more&hellip; yet Alice improves it with wit and rigour.&rsquo;

&lsquo;A gorgeous portrait of the king of cocktails! Alice Lascelles has created an irresistible immersion into the Martini, charting its evolution in stories and recipes, up to the best modern classics found around the world.&rsquo;

Anistatia Miller and Jared Brown, Mixellany Limited

&lsquo;Alice has fine taste and is always meticulously researched so it makes me very happy to have&#160;her thoughts on vital matters such as Martini proportions, garnishes and which gin in&#160;this slim and perfect volume.&rsquo;

&lsquo;As a lover of the longer drink, Alice has done the impossible &ndash; made me utterly fascinated and inquisitive about one of the shortest, most intense of cocktails. Everything about this book &ndash; the writing, the recipes, the photography, the love of life &ndash; is completely beguiling. A delight.&rsquo;

&lsquo;Get to know your Martini. If you want to shake it, go right ahead! If you prefer it with a splash of bitters and a twist of Amalfi lemon, then enjoy. Many of these variations may not fit the mould of what&#39;s classically thought to be a Martini, but if you love it a certain way, that&#39;s what makes it the most memorable and perfect drink of all.&rsquo;

&#39;When it&#39;s Martini Hour, you need a guide and there is no one better than Alice Lascelles.&#39;

&lsquo;Alice Lascelles has written a very apt book about the martini &ndash; it is crisp, elegant and dangerously seductive.&rsquo;

The Ultimate Guide to a Cocktail Icon

"Positively paradigmatic&hellip;The writing is crisply clever but, at the same time so warmly engaging and witty&hellip;the photography is rapturously beautiful. I absolutely love this book."&#160;&ndash; Nigella Lawson 
 
"When it&#39;s Martini Hour, you need a guide and there is no one better than Alice Lascelles." &ndash; Jay Rayner 
 
It&rsquo;s almost 150 years since someone had the idea of mixing dry vermouth and gin &ndash; and yet the Martini is now more popular than it&rsquo;s ever been. What&rsquo;s behind this simple drink&rsquo;s enduring success? And can perfection be reached, with a recipe so renowned, yet as personal as how you take your tea&hellip; 
 &#160; 
 In The Martini, award-winning journalist, Financial Times columnist and cocktail expert Alice Lascelles goes on a deep-dive into one her favourite drinks &ndash;&#160;one that&rsquo;s bewitched bartenders, artists, authors, film-makers and barflies for more than a century. 
 &#160; 
 Over the course of 60 recipes, she charts the Martini&rsquo;s journey from the smoky saloons of 1880s New York to the hottest cocktail joints of the 21st century. Discover old-time Martini twists like the Flame of Love and the Tuxedo in the section on Vintage drinks, or turn to Honorary for fun and fruity updates on Lychee and Espresso Martinis. The Classic section, which covers the likes of the Dry Martini, the Vesper and the Gibson, will delight Martini purists, while the Contemporary chapter showcases new-wave Martini recipes from some of the world&rsquo;s top mixologists. 
 &#160; 
 Peppered with anecdotes from the drink&rsquo;s rich history and Alice&rsquo;s travels round the world in search of the ultimate recipe, The Martini voyages from the speakeasies of Tokyo and the dive bars of Brooklyn to the swankiest hotels of St James&rsquo;s. Discover the best Martini to pair with oysters;&#160; explore variations infused with olive oil, shiso and jasmine tea; find out why your most important tool is your freezer; and the real reason James Bond liked a shaken, not stirred, Martini. 
 &#160; 
 If you don&rsquo;t know what your perfect Martini looks like, then this book will help you find it. And if you do, then its mix of tips, tricks and trade secrets will almost certainly help you to improve it. 
 &#160; 
 Crisply-designed and illustrated with stunning colour photography, The Martini is a stylish, fun and fascinating guide to one of the cocktail world&rsquo;s most enduring classics. 
 
BBC Food Programme&#160;Drinks Book of the Year 2024 
Financial Times&#160;Best Books 2024 
Wall Street Journal&#160;Best Cocktail Books&#160;2024 
The Telegraph&#160;Best Books for Wine Lovers 2024 
Saveur&#160;Best Cook Books 2024 
Hot Dinners&#160;Best Food &amp; Drinks Books 2024 
 
 &#160;

The Martini

Alice Lascelles

Praise for The Martini

Positively paradigmatic…The writing is crisply clever but, at the same time, so warmly engaging and witty…the photography is rapturously beautiful. I absolutely love this book.

‘I could say a Martini requires nothing more… yet Alice improves it with wit and rigour.’

‘A gorgeous portrait of the king of cocktails! Alice Lascelles has created an irresistible immersion into the Martini, charting its evolution in stories and recipes, up to the best modern classics found around ...

Positively paradigmatic…The writing is crisply clever but, at the same time, so warmly engaging and witty…the photography is rapturously beautiful. I absolutely love this book.

‘I could say a Martini requires nothing more… yet Alice improves it with wit and rigour.’

‘A gorgeous portrait of the king of cocktails! Alice Lascelles has created an irresistible immersion into the Martini, charting its evolution in stories and recipes, up to the best modern classics found around ...

Positively paradigmatic…The writing is crisply clever but, at the same time, so warmly engaging and witty…the photography is rapturously beautiful. I absolutely love this book.

‘I could say a Martini requires nothing more… yet Alice improves it with wit and rigour.’

‘A gorgeous portrait of the king of cocktails! Alice Lascelles has created an irresistible immersion into the Martini, charting its evolution in stories and recipes, up to the best modern classics found around ...

Books by Alice Lascelles

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