The Spirit of Gin: A Stirring Miscellany of the New Gin Revival

I initially bought this book for my husband for Christmas, but we have both enjoyed learning a lot more about the libation that has always been front and center on our bar cart in this lively, informative, lavishly illustrated, and very nicely-written book.My husband liked the nitty-gritty of the history and learning about the botanicals and all of that, which I thought very interesting as well, but for my part, I particularly enjoyed the cocktail recipes, especially Arrigo Cipriani's very humorous recipe for the martini he made world-famous at Harry's Bar in Venice, Italy, and the one for a Ramos Fizz *sigh*The first 2/3 of the book focuses of the history, art and craft of making gin and is filled with scores of new and vintage photos and illustrations. The remaining 100+ pages are dedicated to descriptions of currently available gins, boutique and otherwise.This is a beautifully designed book, as well - the cover, the spine, and all parts within.For reference:My husband is Big Gin (martini); Audemars Pink Pepper (g and t).I am G'vine Floraison (with Fever Tree Elderflower Tonic - g and t); Gordon's (negroni)

There is some interesting material in here but not as much new information as I was hoping for. If you've read a bunch of cocktail books already this is probably unnecessary, although the list of gins is pretty impressive (just a tease to someone like me in PA though, I can't get my hands on so many of them!).

Great book. We have one in our home bar and I gave one as a gift. Very informative about the history of gin and has a lot of great recipes too.

I was looking everywhere for this book! When I finally got it I was not dissapointed. This book is jam packed with great info, colorful pictures, and recipes. I bought it as a gift but it is perfect for my inlaws!

Book deserves more than 3 stars especially due price point. Printed in China, you have to be kidding me.

This book is the best book on gin on the market IMHO. A relatively quick read, considering the majority of the book is a somewhat comprehensive list of the ever-growing gin market. Buy it, you will not be disappointed!

the book had an obviously broken cover and barely got a partial refund when i returned it

I bought this as a Christmas gift for my brother-in-law, the gin aficionado - and he absolutely loves it.

Brought for my girlfriends dads girlfriend (phew) always come unstuck buying for someone not usually top of the to do list. Book came on time as estimated delivery date suggested in good condition. I know nothing about Gin, however it's a fairly sizeable book which looks at first glance to be quite informative. Excellent buy for a Gin lover.

Great book for all gin lovers . Excellent service from this seller .

This is a very beautiful book. The overall look and feel are in the best spirit-book tradition and I really like the photography and illustrations. The book is quite broad in scope. It starts with a historical overview; it then discusses distillation techniques and some of the different traditions in making gin before moving on to a number of cocktail related articles interspersed with bartender interviews and some bar impressions. The last 40% or so of the book is taken up by a pictorial list of selected gin distilleries worldwide and a number of portraits of distilleries and distillers.Unfortunately, once you start reading the book, it starts to disappoint. The author does not seem to have checked his facts very thoroughly (e.g., he misses the point about the origin of Navy Strength Gin-- partly because he uses US proof measures which are different from British ones; in his history of jenever he confuses world war I and II; for some of the Dutch gin/jenever distilleries he lists only their gin labels, while for others both gin and jenever are listed).A second, and more serious gripe I have with this book is that most of the content remains very shallow. This is for example the case with the interviews with bartenders and distillers. It seems the author seldom tastes the gins that are being made or served, or has no opinion on them. Compared to similar books about rum, wine, whisk(e)y or cocktails the impressions are not very informative. A lot of innovation is happening in International or Western style gins in the US (and elsewhere). Although the author has interviewed some of the distillers making these, the selection seems somewhat random and we learn rather little about the gins. Famous distillers such as G'Vine, The Botanist, Henrick's, Monkey 47 are not covered in depth.A missed opportunity here is a discussion of the "New Gin Revival", which was put in the title. The author in fact seems to go out of his way to avoid the topic- his focus in cocktails and trivia outside the interviews is thoroughly pre-1950's, he seems surprised every time he finds a good gin or bar in the US, and remains somewhat sceptical about the whole idea of a Western/Botanical/International style. It is only fitting that his foreword is written by 80-year old Arrigo Cipriani, of Harry's bar in Venice, famous for inventing the (gin-free) Bellini, and for classic cocktails, but not really for recent gin related innovations.With regards to bars, the author again manages to review/discuss some bars (such as The Star/ London Gin Club) without drinking a single gin-based drink. And even when discussing a gin tasting, most of the text describes the boisterous atmosphere of the author's group of friends rather than the gins. As with the distilleries, the selection of bars is a bit haphazard. Personally, I would also have loved a discussion of the Spanish cocktail bars with their very elaborate gin tonic menu's. And, sorely missed, a more in-depth discussion of gin tonic pairings and garnishes.The list of distilleries is a very welcome resource; as the author states, it is perhaps impossible to make a complete list as distilleries are popping up all over the place. Similar books on wine or whisk(e)y tend to discuss the distilleries in some level of detail, and provide tasting notes of the spirits produces. This book limits itself to a (beautiful) picture of one of the bottles, in addition to the website URL, and a 3 sentence summary of that website. Again, the selection is sometimes odd. Schwarzwald, who makes Monkey 47, is not on the list of distillers, although the gin itself is named as a legendary gin earlier in the book.I have not yet tried the cocktail recipes. They seem interesting, requiring specific gins for specific cocktails. Again, there is little information about how they will taste. For instance, there are two Negroni recipes in different parts of the book, which differ only in that one of them calls for a specific gin, while the other just lists "gin" as an ingredient. I believe that good cocktail recipe books should ideally tell you something about the taste you can expect, especially when listing subtle variants like these. In any case, there are a lot of other cocktail books out there-- this book is about gin, with some cocktail recipes mixed in.Overall: in my opinion this is a book filled with beautiful photography illustrating a journey of an author who is interested in gin, talks to a number of people who know a lot about gin, and has read a lot of websites about gin. He does not know his subject when he starts on his journey, and he never really seems to get there. It is a fun book to browse through, but not one that takes it subject very seriously.

La storia del Gin è intervallata da spunti preziosi, racconti di alcuni locali, veri e propri tempi del Gin, uno tra gli altri, l’Harry’s Bar a Venezia, di Arrigo Cipriani, che ha firmato anche la prefazione

Really enjoyed this book - basics and advanced infos, recipes, distilleries