Booze & Vinyl Country: Cover Reveal

The Next Music-and-Drink Pairing Book

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Cocktailers, Country Music Fans, & Cocktailing-Country Music Fans ~

Happy April! I hope you are either already in your garden, or about to be, with a mixed drink in one hand and trowel in the other. Spring has sprung and, with it, the new year’s book news: It is cover reveal time!

Booze & Vinyl Country: 100+ Spirited Music-and-Drink Pairings launches September 23rd. You can order it through any of your preferred retailers at the link HERE.

I am thrilled with this next cover. I hope you love it, too. Another great image in a series that has a lot to live up to - since the first Booze & Vinyl cover has become iconic. This one, I think, nails it.

Here is what will be in the book:

Raise a glass to more than 60 of country music’s biggest hit albums with this spirited collection of music and mood-setting drink recipes—a delightful companion to the bestselling listening party guide, Booze & Vinyl. Features more than 100 cocktail recipes!

Together, craft cocktails and vinyl music create sonic imbibing adventures that are both deeply personal and fun to share with others. Saddle up and let Booze & Vinyl Country take you on a journey through the harmonies, heartbreaks, and highs of country music. Covering a range of favorite movements and styles, this is your guide to more than sixty of the most beloved country albums from the 1950s to the present. Each entry features “liner notes” on the album and two accompanying boozy beverage recipes that complement the music or mood or connect the drink to the artist. Select food recipes and full-color photography throughout complete the experience.

​Among the albums featured: Moanin’ the Blues (Hank Williams), Coal Miner’s Daughter (Loretta Lynn), Give It Up (Bonnie Raitt), Jolene (Dolly Parton), Come on Over (Shania Twain), Fearless (Taylor Swift), Cowboy Carter (Beyoncé), D-I-V-O-R-C-E (Tammy Wynette), Charley Pride’s 10th Album (Charley Pride), Stardust (Willie Nelson), Why Not Me (The Judds), No Fences (Garth Brooks), Everywhere (Tim McGraw), Golden Hour (Kacey Musgraves), One Thing at a Time (Morgan Wallen), John Prine (John Prine), The Mysterious Rhinestone Cowboy (David Allen Coe), American IV: The Man Comes Around (Johnny Cash), Weight of These Wings (Miranda Lambert)

More information on this tour, launch parties, and info as the year progresses.

APRIL SHOWERS

If I have been quiet on social media this past month, it is because I am buried in edits for the Tenth Anniversary Edition of The New Cocktail Hour. I can tell you so far that I’ve added more than 30 new cocktails. I’ve also been working on streamlining the manuscript and bringing it up-to-date. It has been a fun trip down memory lane. The cocktail world was so different in 2014-15 when we wrote the book. In fact, Microsoft just announced it was discontinuing Skype - one of the platforms my sister Tenaya and I used to compare recipe field notes. Back in those days, I made my own falernum, orgeat, and lime cordial regularly because you couldn’t get good versions in stores. What a brave new cocktail world we live in.

That brings me to a cocktail that was already a sensation back in 2016 when The New Cocktail Hour published, but you just didn’t see it on menus like you do today. I believe this is one of the great spring cocktails.

I was in the store recently and giant, luminous blackberries called to me. Of course, that means it is time for a Bramble.

BRAMBLE

Dick Bradsell is credited with the creation of this drink, which spread like wildfire from Fred’s Club in London through all of Britain and around the world. The concoction has all the attributes of a runaway hit—it’s pretty, easy to drink, delicious, and glamorous. There are other historic drinks with similar ingredients, like the Parisian and the Arnaud, but they’re just not as good. It’s the lemon juice—it brings freshness and acidity. Note that the drink calls for blackberry liqueur (crème de mûre), but you can use black currant (crème de cassis) in a pinch. Muddle fresh blackberries in the bottom of the glass if you have any handy, and also try serving it over crushed ice.

11/2 ounces (45 ml) gin

3/4 ounces (22 ml) crème de mûre

3/4 ounce (22 ml) fresh lemon juice

1/2 ounce (15 ml) simple syrup

3 blackberries, for garnish

Lemon twist, for garnish

Shake ingredients with ice and strain into a rocks glass over ice. Garnish with a skewer of blackberries, and slip in the lemon twist.

THANK YOU FOR READING. HAPPY SPRING COCKTAILING!