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Atomic
Cocktails: Mixed Drinks for Modern Times
by Karen
Brooks, Gideon Bosker and Reed Darmon
Published
by Chronicle Books
96 pages,
1998
ISBN:
0811819264
Buy it
online
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Shaken, Stirred and
Self-Indulgent
Reviewed
by Linda
Richards
At the height of the late-90s martini craze
Chronicle has published a book that somehow manages to be at
once cloyingly chic and startlingly warm. It's an
interesting combination.
This passage from the book's introduction sums it up quite
well:
After the denials of Prohibition, the
austerity of the Great Depression, and the deprivation of
World War II, Americans uncorked their pent-up craving
for alcohol in the 1950s. What resulted was a dreamlike
world of perfumed elixirs, or clear, opalescent, amber,
pink, and blue potions that lowered inhibitions to limbo
levels and connected souls through the liquid heat of
ethanol and all its iterations.
One can almost hear the strains of the
Verve-style jazz scratching over the hi-fi
while you read.
Atomic Cocktail is not, however, all memories
and parallels. The Bar Talk chapter introduces you to a
dazzling array of bar toys and what to do with them. It
includes sections on what glass to use with what and some
Basic Training like how to salt a rim or make a sugar
syrup.
The drink recipes are categorized into fun and interesting
sections. In the chapter called Atomic Cocktails, for
instance, there are recipes for drinks with space age
purpose. The drink called Rocket Man is no exception. "After
a hard day zipping around, taking out death rays and
smashing sonic detonators, a guy needs a little flaming
cocktail to put it all in perspective."
There are classic cocktails, club cocktails, virgin
cocktails: in fact, cocktails of just about every
description. The cocktails -- and, in fact, the entire book
-- are lavishly illustrated in the kitschy 50s chic style
that we're all growing to love: again.
One part fond look back, one part martini "cook" book and
one part guide to martini madness, Atomic
Cocktail is a beautifully produced celebration of 50s
decadence. The kind of book that makes a swell gift or
self-indulgence. | October 1998
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