Its summer and this is the season for great cocktails books. The past few months have seen many excellent cocktail books published but this one rises to the top. Its creators go by the name The Tippling Brothers, a tribute to the concept of tippling — an English term for continuous drinking of small amounts of wonderful things.
There are 72 wonderful things in this book, plus scads of advice on techniques and ingredients. Authors Tad Carducci and Paul Tanguay are not real bothers, but they are friends with almost 60 years of mixology experience between them.
The result? Exceptional ideas. The book’s subtitle is Discovering Mexican-Inspired Cocktails. That’s a hint that tequila and lime will appear page after page. Add additional spirits and fruits, combine with some dashes of bitters, and swirl in outrageous syrup ideas, and you have cocktails elevated to true tippling levels.
Standing back from those recipes, these Tippling Brothers have a few key techniques that they apply over and over again.
First, you double down. The Buena Tierra is made by muddling both mint and cilantro in what can only be described as intensely green. Oh, there is tequila, lime, and limoncello, too. Another delight use both pear liqueur and pear puree in the Siempre Es Pera.
Second, use additional spirits to make the flavor complex as the devil. In the Division Bell, mezcal is boosted with Aperol and maraschino liqueur. Or, there is the Tres Coops where mezcal is amplified with St-Germain elderflower liqueur and Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur.
And, lastly, you add sweetness but not with just “simple syrup.” No the syrups here are diverse and ingenious. There’s Grandma’s Mix which is simple syrup + Grand Marnier. This syrup is used in their basic margarita — which has a totally different ratio of tequila, orange flavoring, and lime than I’ve been using. The Tippling Brother’s version has hints of orange that let the full force of tequila shine in full brilliance. It’s a must try.
There’s a Morita Chile Syrup with cinnamon sticks and morita chiles. Warm as it may be, that syrup is just mild compared to the Mexican Spiced Syrup with cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, star anise, allspice, peppercorns and whole cloves. Imagine what you can do with those components.
A Lime and a Shaker happily overflows with imagination and fantasy. It’s 250 pages that will take you hours to work your way through because you just have to stop at every recipe. You really have to.
It’s going to take me months to test all the wonderful ideas here. I’ve already made that Buena Tierra with the muddled mint and cilantro. I’ll blog it soon. How was it? Memorable. One of those “new” ideas in this book that may become one of your standards. Your cocktail world is about to expand.
I urge you: if you love cocktails and mixology, A Lime and a Shaker is indispensable. You’ll be happy. You’ll be tippling.