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The Drunken Botanist, by Amy Stewart
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A New York Times Bestseller
Sake began with a grain of rice. Scotch emerged from barley, tequila from agave, rum from sugarcane, bourbon from corn. Thirsty yet? In The Drunken Botanist, Amy Stewart explores the dizzying array of herbs, flowers, trees, fruits, and fungi that humans have, through ingenuity, inspiration, and sheer desperation, contrived to transform into alcohol over the centuries.
Of all the extraordinary and obscure plants that have been fermented and distilled, a few are dangerous, some are downright bizarre, and one is as ancient as dinosaurs--but each represents a unique cultural contribution to our global drinking traditions and our history.
This fascinating concoction of biology, chemistry, history, etymology, and mixology--with more than fifty drink recipes and growing tips for gardeners--will make you the most popular guest at any cocktail party.
(from the catalog)
- Sales Rank: #2755 in Books
- Published on: 2013-03-19
- Released on: 2013-03-19
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.31" h x .94" w x 6.25" l, 1.25 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 400 pages
Features
- Learn the origins of the worlds most popular beverages
- Distilled & fermented libations
- Includes tasty recipes and gardening tips
Amazon.com Review
An Amazon Best Book of the Month, March 2013: Peppered with fascinating facts and well-chosen anecdotes, Amy Stewart’s brisk tour of the origin of spirits acquaints the curious cocktail fan with every conceivable ingredient. Starting with the classics (from agave to wheat), she touches on obscure sources--including a tree that dates to the dinosaur age--before delving into the herbs, spices, flowers, trees, fruits, and nuts that give the world’s greatest drinks distinctive flavors. Along the way, you’ll enjoy sidebars on bugs in booze and inspired drink recipes with backstories that make lively cocktail party conversation. Like Wicked Plants, this delightfully informative, handsome volume isn’t intended as a complete reference or DIY guide, but it will demystify and heighten your appreciation of every intoxicating plant you imbibe. --Mari Malcolm
Review
"Amy Stewart has a way of making gardening seem exciting, even a little dangerous." ―The New York Times
"Many boozy books have been published over the years, spilling over with fun facts about absinthe, grog and bathtub gin. What makes Stewart's book different is her infectious enthusiasm for the plants, their uses, their history, and the botanists who roamed the earth finding them. The result is intoxicating but in a fresh, happy, healthy way." ―USA Today
"The Drunken Botanist is a sipping book, not a quaffing book, best enjoyed in moderation...Part Ripley’s Believe It or Not, part compendium on the order of 'Schott’s Original Miscellany' and part botanical garden tour, albeit with a curated cocktail party at the end.... a companionable reference and whimsical recitation of historical-botanical trivia, with a little tart debunking." ―The Washington Post
"Sipping an evening cocktail while flipping through this fine volume, I discovered that Ms. Stewart knew how to change a run-of-the-mill cocktail into an intriguing one." ―The Wall Street Journal
"A book that makes familiar drinks seem new again…Through this horticultural lens, a mixed drink becomes a cornucopia of plants." ―NPR's Morning Edition
"Fascinating, well researched and instructive ― with appealing recipes too." ―Rosie Schaap, New York Times
"Gardening can be an intoxicating hobby, especially if the botany is booze-related." ―The Associated Press
About the Author
Amy Stewart is the award-winning author of six books on the perils and pleasures of the natural world. She is the cofounder of the popular blog Garden Rant and is a contributing editor at Fine Gardening magazine. She and her husband live in Eureka, California, where they own an antiquarian bookstore called Eureka Books.
Most helpful customer reviews
172 of 185 people found the following review helpful.
"The botanical world produces alcohol in abundance."
By Amelia Gremelspacher
Plants soak up CO2 and sunlight and convert it to sugar and exhale oxygen. When sugar is combined with yeast, alcohol is born. So alcohol is very a very close cousin to the substances that make life possible. Yeast is plentiful in the air, which I didnt know, so many staple foods will turn to alcohol with time. I am not a drinker, but I am a gardener, and I am nosey. So I found this encyclodedic book to be delightful reading.
Stewart does a thorough job of describing the the various plants that form the basis of the alcoholic drinks in the world. She adds a few myth busters such as the fact that a worm in mescal actually just means a marketing tool for cheap mescal and is not remotely hallucinogenic. Good cider is made from apples so sour they are called spitters. Gin is actually flavored vodka. These are not spoilers, there are many such facts. In addition, she feeds my garden soul with the history of how these plants were found, mutated, grown, etc. And she points out which plants have very toxic relatives which look remarkably like the good cultivers so these you should not pick in the wild.
She addresses the taste of each type of drink, how they taste, and how to make a cocktail with each type. And for us clueless types, she describes the "top shelf" specimens and what makes them premium. SHe also explicates the appropriate mixers and herb additives and how these came into popular use. The drink recipes seem intriguing as well. I especially enjoyed the nuggets of social history that accompany the text, for example the extreme creation of the slave trade to harvest the sugar so vital for rum.
I enjoyed reading this book. It is more a collection of essays or entries than one narrative. As such, it makes perfect reading for those short breaks we all take. I personally got a bit weary with all the different permutations of alcohol and their precursors, but overall found the text to be full of information that I didnt know; much of it is fun to know. As a source book, I would find it excellent. Right now, different variations of familiar drinks and alcohols are particularly popular, so I would especially recommend this book to people who like to experiment with combinations. For the rest of us, we learn something new, always an excellent attribute in a book.
87 of 95 people found the following review helpful.
Intelligent Writing with a dry wit!
By D_shrink
This book turned out to be an excellent reference on plants and their many uses by humans. The author discussed many plant uses beside fermenting plant starches into sugars by the addition of yeasts. One could tell the author loved discussing plants with the occasional witty remark and her extensive knowledge of each of the various species. If one could find a fault with the book, it might be the inclusion of many species of which all but those engaged in botanical research would be familiar. But that aside the book was a fun and informative read. The author chose to list all the various plants by their common names rather than list them by their Latin nomenclature, as is more typical in many botanical references, and this point was greatly appreciated.
Although there were hundreds of interesting facts regarding the various plant species, I would like to list just a few to give the readers an idea that the book was interesting and did not just discuss making booze.
1. We learn the Barley is the most prolific grain at converting its starches into sugar to make alcohol because it has a high level of enzymes and that it is an easy plant to grow not being much affected by cold, drought, or poor soil conditions.
2. Peat is what gives Scotch its particular taste.
3. Kentucky produces 90% of all the bourbon in the world. [p47]
4. Cork comes from the Portuguese Oak [Quercus Suber. It is stripped annually with each tree yielding about 4k corks, primarily used in wine bottling, yet the trees regenerate new bark each year and live for about 2 centuries before finally dying.
5. The real difference between American and Canadian whiskeys is that each batch of American whiskey reguires a new oak barrel, while Canadians can use barrels previously used for making wine or whiskey before. This gives it more flavor than American bourbon, but each batch may taste slightly different depending on what the barrels had previously held.
6. Absinthe doesn't make you drunk [crazy] because of the wormwood being fermented but the fact that it was originally bottles at 70% ABV as opposed to Brandy commonly bottled at 40% ABV. Since it was 75% stronger you got drunk and started acting crazy much sooner than had you been drinking Brandy which was very commonly drunk when people favored absinthe. In this regard think of Henry Miller and Anais Nin.
7. Vodka became popular in America only after WWII because distillers couldn't get enough grain to use, so begged potato growers to send them all the small and misshapen potatoes they had, since appearance wouldn't matter. Distillers sold 1M gallons of Vodka in 1946 and 30M by 1965. BTW, Vodka uses rye, wheat, and other grains in its manufacture, but most Americans think of it as only made from Potatoes. There is also a big controversy over where Vodka originated, whether Poland or Russia. [p70]
8. We also learn that that the agave plant used to make Tequila is not a cactus but a member of the asparagus family, and that each plant yields enough sap to make about 250 gallons of maguay beer, which was drunk some 2K years ago. How do we know that; well it is because some scientist analyzed some 2k year old coprofites. :-0
9. Although humans have about 25k different genes, an apple tree has 57k.
There was also a nice and lengthy section on herbs made from the green or fleshy part of plants and spices made from the bark, root, stem, or seed of plants.
As you can see there was a lot more to the book than the simple making of booze. Highly recommended.
62 of 67 people found the following review helpful.
Grab A Drink. Grab This Book.
By mjpcal
Oh, Amy Stewart, you've done it again!! Previously, in Wicked Plants and Wicked Bugs, we learned how potentially benign gifts of nature can be our deadly undoing. That made us all much more cautious and caused all sorts of stress and worry. And, how did we cope and calm down? We had a simple and refreshing libation. Now, in The Drunken Botanist, we learn that our basic alcohol over ice with a dash of whatever and a splash of something and a sprig for a picturesque finish is not so simple after all. It's wrought with geography and history and botany and chemistry and politics and enough complexity to make one wish for simpler days of temperance and Prohibition. Well, that may be taking it too far, but it's at least enough to cause one to quickly sit down, pour oneself a drink, grab this book, and ponder what to do next!
It's always best in arenas of the unknown to start at the beginning and that is exactly what The Drunken Botanist does. To understand and appreciate the book is just like making a cocktail. Part I enumerates the plants that are used to make the basic varieties of alcohol. You quickly learn that there are almost an unlimited number of results of fermentation or distillation. What you get usually is dependent upon plant availability, geography, or tradition. What you do with your basic alcohol (aging, etc.) can then produce the next range of products.
Moving on to Part II, we now start adding various herbs and spices, flowers, trees, fruit, and nuts and seeds to our "basic" alcohol. This is how we get to that whole range of liqueurs, crèmes, fruit-this and nut-that. I'm particularly intrigued by the origins and history and varieties of gin. I've long said that there should be a museum of gin. And do you know anyone else who carries a little picture card in his wallet showing some ten botanicals in gin!
What is striking at this point is how important the varieties of alcohol and spices have been in the trade and commerce and history of the world.
Part III finishes the cocktail with the bounty of the garden used, as some would say, a garnish, but more importantly as fresh ingredients in your libation or as an integral part of a well-considered finished product.
There's a basic backbone that runs through The Drunken Botanist so that it's readable for a good knowledge and understanding of the depth and breadth of the subject, but there are also so, so many small sections and sidebars that can be read separately (and at random). There's more basic knowledge and trivial pleasure here than you could quickly skim through.
So, taking my gin martini ... on ice with dry vermouth and orange bitters ... in hand, I'm ready to read on. The only thing that I might ask for is some new liquor that might stand as tall as the redwoods of Amy Stewart's northwestern California. St. George Spirits has their Botanivore gin with 19 botanicals, Anchor Distilling (San Francisco) has their Junipero gin, and Clear Creek Distillery produces Douglas fir eau-de-vie. Maybe something along the lines of a Sequoia semprevirens liqueur. Hmmm.
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