The Drunken Botanist- The Plants That Create The World's Great Drinks

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A well-balanced book..some history, some horticulture, and recipes too. The book is structured around the journey from the desired plant to still, to bottle, to glass. The second part delves into the plants that are added for flavoring or the like, and these are organized by: 1.) herbs and spices, 2.) flowers, 3.) trees, 4.) fruit, and 5.) nuts and seeds. Through all this, her writing is approachable and entertaining. Another reviewer compared her to Mary Roach, and I agree that's a fair comparison.

The suggestions of ways to explore more- like with tequilas and liqueurs- were really interesting, and our bar storage is going to be increasing. The drink recipes included worked really well based on those I tried. Stewart has written a book that, while small, is encyclopedic in style. First she takes us through the plants- grains, potatoes, cacti, grasses - that are fermented and distilled to make hard liquors; then she goes through categories like fruit, sap (sugar maple), and roots that are fermented and the herbs, seeds, nuts, and barks that are used to flavor the brews. For each plant she tells us how and where it was/is used, what it adds to the brew, which brands of the brew are best, and for many, how to grow the plant. This is where the book ties into gardening: while the average gardener won’t be growing grain and setting up a still, most gardeners are able to grow some mint for mojitos, jalapenos for some special margaritas, cherry tomatoes for a Blushing Mary, or a fruit tree. Face it; nearly everything in an alcoholic drink comes from plants except for bacon vodka and Irish cream. And a lot of those things are easy to grow. The author includes over 50 drink recipes for the home mixologist.

The Drunken Botanist Book Trailer

Scott browsed the selection of bottled Agave tequilana. He was in the habit of trekking into Mexico in search of rare agave and cactus, and he’d encountered many of his prized specimens coming out of the working end of a handmade Oaxacan still." The writing here covers the many various plants, herbs, and spices involved in the production of alcoholic drinks. Stewart's writing proceeds through the various different plants in an alphabetical fashion, while splicing in many different associated drink recipies along the way. So, depending on the mission, one person will be more interested in the content of the bottle, and another might be thrilled by the botanical magic leading up to it. I'm one of the latter. A teetotaler since forever, most boring nerd at a party. Coffee and water - the only substance abuses I am guilty of. Ah, it just happily float my boat. “How can anyone with even a passing interest in botany not be fascinated by this stuff?” I said. “Look at the ingredients. Juniper! That’s a conifer. Coriander, which is, of course, the fruit of a cilantro plant. All gins have citrus peel in them. This one has lavender buds, too. Gin is nothing but an alcohol extraction of all these crazy plants from around the world—tree bark and leaves and seeds and flowers and fruit.” We had arrived at the liquor store by then, and I was gesturing wildly at the shelves around us. “This is horticulture! In all of these bottles!”One hundred and sixty plant species are covered in the book. But there's thousands more, of course. Stewart weaves botanical information with history to tell a story as to how the various plants have worked their way into our alcohol (and there are so many plants it’s not even funny). There were a couple of places where I’m not hundred percent sure of the factoid (or at least I know it wasn’t what my botany books said) and a few others where her personal preferences came through a bit too much (a dislike of chocolate liquors and a love of bourbon, which I admit, is not my personal favorite). Despite being effectively a herbal with recipes thrown in, it's very soothing to listen to and didn't feel "list-y." Histories and anecdotes flowed naturally, and the recipes were separated from the text with an audible clink of a glass. Effectively perfect for casual listening in the car where your attention can dip in and out.

We also learn that that the agave plant used to make Tequila is not a cactus but a member of the asparagus family, and that each plant yields enough sap to make about 250 gallons of maguay beer, which was drunk some 2K years ago. How do we know that; well it is because some scientist analyzed some 2k year old coprofites. :-0

The Drunken Botanist Reviews

Nature seems to love making alcohol; take any plant with sugars present in it (any fruit and a lot of grains) and let it sit out where wild yeasts can land in it, give it a little time, and alcohol will appear. Humans have been taking advantage of this for thousands of years and show no signs of losing their enchantment with alcohol. It seems that no matter what area humans lived in, there was *something* that could be turned into alcohol. And if it couldn’t be turned into alcohol, it could be used to flavor alcohol.

Amy Stewart has a way of making gardening seem exciting, even a little dangerous.” — The New York Times Drunken botanists? Given the role they play in creating the world’s great drinks, it’s a wonder there are any sober botanists at all." One of the best attributes about this book is that it covers all the main spirits and you can easily jump to your favorite sections.The formatting of this one was very well done. Stewart combines historical info, and brief descriptions with popup texts with interesting anecdotes, drink recipes, and more. Stewart does a wonderful job of clarifying misunderstandings and debunking popular myths throughout the book. " Mezcal is sometimes confused with mescaline, the psychoactive component of the peyote cactus Lophophora williamsii. In fact, the two are entirely unrelated, although peyote was sold in the nineteenth century as “muscale buttons,” leading to a linguistic misunderstanding that persists today." Stewart creates an adventure for the readers regarding plants ranging from agave to wheat. One humorous story is about pear cider. It is smooth going down, then your stomach sounds like thunder, and it exits your body like lightening. Despite that memorable description, she highly recommends trying pear cider. Now carry your julep to the porch and remain there until bedtime; there will be nothing else to your day but the slow draining of the glass and the pleasant drone of the cicadas. In China, they make their wine from barley; in the northern parts thereof, from rice and apples. In Japan, also they prepare a strong wine from rice. We in England, likewise, have great variety of wines from cherries, apples, pears, &c. little inferior to those of foreign growth. In Brazil, and elsewhere, they make strong wine of water and sugarcane: and in Barbadoes they have many liquors unknown to us. Among the Turks, where wine of the grape is forbid by their law, the Jews and Christians keep, in their taverns, a liquor made of fermented raisins. The Sura in the East-Indies is made of the juice that flows from the cocoa-tree; and sailors have often been inebriated, in that country, with the liquors made of the fermented juices obtain’d by the incision of vegetables.

This is a great book, very interesting. It all started when Stewart went to a liquor store with her friend.Continue to taste it regularly. You might be pleased with the result after just a few days or a week. Then strain the mixture again, and add simple syrup to taste. Let it sit for 3-4 weeks, then drink it within a few months—it’s not intended to keep forever. Some of the most extraordinary and obscure plants have been fermented and distilled, and they each represent a unique cultural contribution to our global drinking traditions and our history. Molasses was an essential ingredient in American independence: when the British forced the colonies to buy British (not French) molasses for their New World rum-making, the settlers outrage kindled the American Revolution. Rye, which turns up in countless spirits, is vulnerable to ergot, which contains a precursor to LSD, and some historians have speculated that the Salem witch trials occurred because girls poisoned by ergot had seizures that made townspeople think they d been bewitched. Then there's the tale of the thirty-year court battle that took place over the trademarking of Angostura bitters, which may or may not actually contain bark from the Angostura tree. I've grown up in the northern parts of South Africa and we witnessed these animals constantly. Not only eating the fruit, but stumbling away in a drunken stupor. In fact, when the word was out that elephants were at the trees, we all went en masse to witness it. When the elephants shook the trees, the monkeys within had to cling for dear life until the tree-quake was over. It lasted only a few minutes at a time. Despite my love-hate relationship with potted plants (they keep dying), the title of this book immediately caught my attention. Maybe that’s because I have a love-love relationship with liquors and most kinds of alcohol, who knows. While writing this review, I was sipping a good red port and musing over all the great anecdotes in this book. The book is best described as an encyclopaedia of the botanical origins of drinks, and how people came to make alcohol out of every plant they could find, such as the banana. Sometimes I really do admire the inventiveness of humans. So grab a nice drink of your choosing and let me tell you a bit more about this book. Do yourself a favor and watch it! Even the worms have a happy moment! Believe me, those hangovers are REAL!