Wine lovers, booze hounds and gastronauts alike will go gaga for these recently published tomes, each inspiring and enticing readers with every turn of the page.
It’s the height of oyster season, which is excellent timing for the release of Drew Smith’s history of all things bivalve. Smith explores the importance of oysters in food and trade, as well as its ecological contributions the world over. Rounding out the tome are 50 recipes like Roman oyster sauce and pickled oysters.
Bright watercolors and warm memories leap off the page in this collection of stories by the doyenne of Napa herself, Margrit Mondavi. Eleven recollections span the years as Mondavi shares intimate stories of her life with her late husband, famed vinter Robert, each story involving wine in ways big and small. Interspersed throughout are some of Mondavi’s favorite recipes, inviting readers to recreate their own moments with flavors from her past.
Bien Cuit: The Art of Bread, by Zachary Golper and Peter Kaminsky ($50)
Do secretly harbor fantasies of competing on The Great British Bake Off? This cookbook is for you. From his Brooklyn bakery of the same name, chef and author Zachary Golper delivers this paean to bread, inspiring amateur bakers and readers to get into the kitchen and simply start baking. With his trademark dark, crusty brown bread, Golper has distilled the essential secrets to simple-yet-impressive bread baking. Over the course of 50 recipes—ranging from rolls to scones—Golper revives traditional and iconic breads, but also leaves room for invention, like sourdough buckwheat and sunflower rye.
Think local, fresh and foraged only applies to food? Think again. A forager herself, Emily Han offers tips for embracing wild ingredients in teas, syrups, spirits and even wine. With her 100 recipes, Han shows you how to shop for ingredients that can be sourced from your backyard or local market, along with lessons on fermenting your own kombucha or kefir.
History buffs will enjoy Duggan McDonnell’s account of San Francisco’s boozy past. McDonnell takes you on a tour of the city’s highs and lows with looks at saloons of yesteryear, along with recipes to iconic cocktails made famous throughout the city. With 80 recipes for classic and contemporary cocktails, this book drips with nostalgia, history and love for the City by the Bay.
The Year of Drinking Adventurously: 52 Way to Get Out of Your Comfort Zone, by Jeff Cioletti ($20)
In 2016, make a resolution to get out of your booze rut by picking up this book. Each of Cioletti’s 52 chapters—one for each week of the year—will help you discover new brewers, distillers and cocktail that will broaden your horizons. Never had sour beer? How about pulque? Now’s your chance. Cioletti is a bon vivant of the first order, and his book will get you drinking something new in the time it takes you to crack open that first bottle.
Lonely Planet’s Wine Trails: Plan 52 Perfect Weekends in Wine Country ($25)
Speaking of resolutions, pack your bags and get ready to hit the road. With this, its first wine-focused guide, travel guide giant Lonely Planet charts a road map to the world’s greatest wine regions, with itineraries designed by experts, sommeliers and buyers. From Central Otago to Swartland, there’s no shortage of adventure (or wine) in this book.
A Natural History of Wine, by Ian Tattersall and Rob Desalle ($35)
Winemaking is often described as an art but at the end of the day, it is also delicious science. In this book, scientists Tattersall and Desalle deep dive into what’s in our glass, asking “what can science tell us about wine?” Spanning anthropology and biochemistry to neurobiology and everything inbetween, the authors engross and delight readers with accessible, fascinating stories that surprise even seasoned wine pros.
A Visual Guide to Drink, by Ben Gibson and Patrick Mulligan of Pop Chart Lab ($30)
Sure, it’s a book of what are essentially infographics, but Pop Chart Lab’s colorful tome is enough to get design geeks hot under the collar. With clever, poster-worthy prints, the team explores beer, wine and spirits with maps, visual recipes, charts and graphs that stimulate the eye and palate.