Book review: Signature Cocktails

Undoubtedly created with drinks professionals in mind as well as enthusiastic amateurs, Signature Cocktails showcases 200 drinks from bars around the world. The book has been curated by New York-based drinks journalist Amanda Schuster in consultation with regional drinks experts across the globe. She clearly knows her stuff, with the book striking a good balance between stone-cold classics and cocktails that are lesser-known but very much worth a go (it’s not all highbrow stuff either, the book contains some pleasingly frivolous numbers including the Brittany Spears-inspired Hit Me Baby One Mai Tai).    

Signature Cocktails is arranged in chronological order, kicking off with a fascinating sounding drink called Atholl Brose which was created in 1475 and involves steeping oats in a water to create the titular brose and then mixing it with Scotch, honey syrup and double cream. The book moves from era to era providing definitive recipes for staples including the Daiquiri (1898); the Clarito (1935);  the Espresso Martini (1983); and the skateboarding-referencing Deathflip (2010). 

As well as the date, each entry details the location, the bar and the bartender and provides an entertaining and informative potted history of how the drink was created and often its wider context in the cocktail world. Methods are a little more detailed than they are in some other cocktail manuals aimed at professionals providing clear instructions to allow anyone to faithfully recreate a given drink. The majority of the recipes are straightforward but there a handful of more complex ones, not least Ryan Chetiyawardana’s Bone Dry Martini, which involves food-grade phosphoric acid and a chicken leg bone. 

Signature Cocktails​

Author: Amanda Schuster​
Number of pages: 432​
Standout recipe: Ramos Gin Fizz ​
Publisher and price: Phaidon, £29.95​​​