Our pick
Our pick
Death & Co: Modern Classic Cocktails
500+ recipes from the New York bar, with the specs, syrups and technique behind them. The modern home bar bible.
Best for Anyone serious about cocktails
Cocktail Books
The books that taught us the most about balance, technique and what to do with a fridge full of syrups. They make great gifts, too.
Cocktail Codex: Fundamentals, Formulas, Evolutions
Teaches six root cocktails so you can invent your own. Ideal once you have a fridge full of custom syrups.
Best for Creating your own drinks
The Bar Book: Elements of Cocktail Technique
Jeffrey Morgenthaler's technique manual on juicing, carbonating, shaking and ice. It makes every syrup drink better.
Best for Learning technique
The Joy of Mixology (Revised and Updated Edition)
Gary Regan's classic sorts drinks into families, which makes it easy to see where a new syrup can slot in.
Best for Understanding drink families
Liquid Intelligence: The Art and Science of the Perfect Cocktail
Dave Arnold's deep dive into sugar, acid, dilution and carbonation: the science behind syrup ratios.
Best for Cocktail science nerds
Gift idea
Gift idea
The Aviary Cocktail Book
Oversized and ambitious: Chicago's Aviary shares its techniques and recipes. A splurge gift for a serious home bartender.
Best for Splurge gifts
The Savoy Cocktail Book (Harry Craddock)
The 1930 London classic: 750 recipes, many still poured exactly as printed. The source for a dozen drinks on this site.
Best for Classic-cocktail history
The PDT Cocktail Book (Jim Meehan)
The New York speakeasy's full menu with exact specs, including Benton's Old Fashioned and a careful Bee's Knees.
Best for Modern classics, exact specs
Smuggler's Cove: Exotic Cocktails, Rum, and the Cult of Tiki
The modern tiki bible from the San Francisco bar: rum styles explained, plus the syrups (falernum, passion fruit, cinnamon) that make tiki work.
Best for Tiki at home
Beachbum Berry Remixed (Jeff Berry)
Jeff Berry's rescued recipes from Don the Beachcomber and Trader Vic, from the Navy Grog to the Hurricane.
Best for Tiki history and recipes
The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails
The reference book: who invented what and when, with the evidence. Where the history on these drink pages is checked.
Best for The drinks historian
Imbibe! (David Wondrich, updated edition)
Jerry Thomas and the birth of the American bar, with the original punches, sours and cocktails redrawn for today.
Best for Nineteenth-century drinks
Regarding Cocktails (Sasha Petraske)
The Milk & Honey way: short, exact recipes and the house rules behind the Gold Rush and Penicillin.
Best for Simple, perfect drinks
A Proper Drink (Robert Simonson)
How the cocktail revival happened, told by the bartenders, with the recipes for the modern classics they created.
Best for Modern-classic stories
Gift idea
Gift idea
Good Drinks (Julia Bainbridge)
Alcohol-free recipes from bartenders across the US, for when you are not drinking, for whatever reason.
Best for Non-drinkers and hosts
Gift idea
Gift idea
The Nonalcoholic Bar (John deBary)
Opens with core syrup and infusion recipes, then builds full alcohol-free drinks from them.
Best for Non-drinkers who like to make things