Guides for the Perfect Cocktail
There’s something fun and timely about crafting a perfectly balanced cocktail at home.
The owners of the award winning Death & Company Cocktail lounges located in New York, Denver, and Los Angles are here to help.
In my opinion, there are two ways to utilize their two books listed below.
Use them as you would a recipe cookbook: Search the index or sections based upon the base liquor you have on hand and follow the directions.
Give them a good read and start to comprehend their approach to balance, taste and composition and permanently upgrade your home bartending skills.
All the recipes are sure to impress, but things go a bit further in each book. The Black Death & Co. book gives a sneak peek at what goes into creating the top cocktail bars on the planet and how to create the ultimate home bar. It works through tasting profiles, things like learning to balance sweet and bitter tastes and has plenty of riffs off of classic cocktails. Every drink I make from this book makes me feel like I’ve just scored a $15 cocktail at the bar for a fraction of the cost at home.
The Grey covered book, Cocktail Codex takes a slightly different approach. The premise is that there are only 6 cocktails namely the Old Fashioned, the Martini, the Daiquiri, the Sidecar, the Whisky Highball and the Flip. The rest are merely modifications on these templates. Master the basics and go from there.
Is one book better than the other? They are both easy to read and navigate despite the massive amount of content and in my opinion they make a perfect set.
An added bonus is that these beautiful books from David Kaplan and Nick Fauchald look and feel far from a cookbook. They will look awesome in your book collection, on the coffee table or behind your home bar.
While you wait for the books, a simple google of “Death & Co cocktail recipe” will open up a rabbit hole worth heading down.
