Alcoholica Esoterica: A Collection of Useful and Useless Information As It Relates to the History and Consumption of All Manner of Booze

My husband is a wine writer for our local newspaper so I purchased this book for him. He liked the book so much that he did a side-bar to his last article with the following review: More than just a book about wine this is "a collection of useful and useless information as it relates to the history and consumption of all manner of booze." There is a remarkable amount of information packed into this entertaining and offbeat book. You're likely to find yourself reading it two or three times because it is impossible to remember all the frivolous and factual trivia Lender offers up. For example, an Italian café owner created the beverage Compari in 1860 but it became wildly popular in the U.S. during Prohibition where it was considered a digestive bitter, not alcohol. It just happened to be 48 proof.

"Alcoholica Esoterica offers the dish on every type of spirit in the liquor cabinet, from absinthe to vodka, and in "Mount Lushmore" assembles a Drunkards' Hall of Fame that enshrines Dean Martin, W.C. Fields, Dorothy Parker, Humphrey Bogart and Winston Churchill. The book's shape -- 4 by 8 inches -- makes it easy to remove from a back pocket while parked on a bar stool. But Lendler recognizes the danger: He warns readers they could turn into Cliff Clavin, the trivia-spouting mailman of TV's "Cheers." "I learned tons of interesting anecdotes and facts" while researching the book, Lendler writes. "I was the nightmare of every party." His book is loaded with bar-bet-ready snippets of infotainment. Did you know, for instance, that folks back in the day boozed so often because water was fetid and alcohol killed the germs? Or that Johnny Appleseed was traipsing through the 18th-century wilderness planting apple trees to be "used for one reason and one reason only -- to make hard cider"? These tidbits are habit-forming. One is too many and a dozen aren't enough."

I'm not sure whether this book is better read in the bathroom or in a bar. it's got all teh quick funny info that you expect from good bathroom reading, but it makes you wanna grab a beer while you're reading it. But in a good way, not some degenerate, Bukowksi kinda thing. Seriously, when this book isn't being funny, it's telling interesting history. Two pints up!

"A ridiculously entertaining collection of alcohol-related facts and tidbits, gathered together and chuckled over by Ian Lendler. In this wry book of alcoholic anecdotes, Lendler covers significant ground in the Land of Booze. One moment he tenders a neat little bar trick-drop a raisin in a glass of champagne and it will circulate in perpetual motion from the bottom of the glass to the top and back again-then delivers, still in a jazzy tone, a compact history of fortified wines. There are vest-pocket profiles of giants he would carve on Mount Lushmore-W.C. Fields, Humphrey Bogart, Dean Martin, Dorothy Parker, Winston Churchill-and scads of useless information to while away happy hour: how many berries, herbs, roots and flowers are required for making vermouth; the origin of the word "binge"; why Oktoberfest is called Oktoberfest even though it's celebrated in September; and some profoundly disturbing hangover-cure hokum, such as ground swallow's beaks in myrrh (ancient Assyria) and rubbing half a lemon in the pit of your drinking arm (Puerto Rico). Raise a glass to Lendler, then grab the nearest person you can find and reel off a few tidbits from this collection of gloriously mirthful arcana. "

Alright, sorry for the bad pun, but this is a very funny book. The bartender at my local pub was reading this and I joined it. I didn't know half this stuff. I especially loved the part about the brewery in england in the 1800's that built the biggest beer vat ever seen. Too bad it burst and sent a wall of beer down the street wiping out buildings and people too! i totally recomend this.