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More practically, you will waste a lot of time—unless of course you are simply using your drinks manual as dipsography, the alcoholic equivalent of pornography—reading about concoctions that call for stuff you simply have not got to hand. You may like the sound of a Grand Slam as prescribed in The Diners’ Club Drink Book, with its jigger of Carioca rum, whatever that is, its half-jiggers of brandy and Curaçao, its dash of Kirschwasser and the rest, but, professional bartenders and fanatical booze-collectors apart, you are likely to have to read on in search of something you can make from stock. (A way of reducing this problem is outlined in my note on The Store Cupboard.)

Most drink-men, however, will like to feel they have on their shelves an authoritative and reasonably comprehensive encyclopedia of liquor, and the present little book, although needless to say frighteningly authoritative, is, for reasons explained elsewhere, not comprehensive, at least so far as its recipes are concerned. The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks, by David A. Embury (Faber), scores high from this point of view, and is written in a pleasantly companionable style. It is also— inevitably—American, which slightly diminishes its usefulness in the British context, and the author is what I shall venture to call wrong here and there, but his book is without doubt your Best Buy. Of shorter guides of this kind, I would recommend 3 Bottle Bar, by H.i.—Yes, i. No, I don’t know— Williams (Faber). Both are in paperback.

Neither Embury nor Williams has much to say about wine, except as regards its role in hot or cold punches and the like. Their business is with cocktails, coolers, cobblers, cups; with mixed drinks, in fact. Very few people who are proficient in this field know or care anything about wine as such, and the same applies in reverse to wine men. As the reader will see, I am not much of a wine man, but some of my best friends are, and I have called in expert assistance to guide me here.

The Easy Guide to Wine, issued free by the Wine Development Board (6 Snow Hill, London ECI), will tell the beginner most of what he wants to know in its couple of dozen pages of sound, well-chosen information and advice. For the more advanced, or more inquisitive, Alexis Lichine’s Encyclopedia of Wines and Spirits and all other alcoholic drinks too (Cassell) is very solidly professional and factual, laying much greater stress on wines than on spirits: it devotes more space to Gevrey-Chambertin, one of thirty wine-producing districts in part of Burgundy, than to gin. Wines and Spirits of the World, edited by Alec H. Gold (Virtue), is similarly comprehensive and equally wine-oriented, but with a lot of splendid photographs thrown in. A real dipsographic debauch, so much so that I had to struggle with my better nature for quite a few seconds before deciding to add, lifemanfully, that I did note one or two omissions: no mention is made of the wines of New York State, with their annual yield comparable to that of Cyprus . . . But those who, like me, have tasted some of the wines of New York State will find it hard to care. Lastly, The Penguin Book of Wines, by Allan Sichel, is an excellent cheap guide: unpretentious, thorough (300 pages) and very practical, quoting plenty of names and up-to-date (1971) prices.

With all these books, as with any on the subject, do not expect to turn yourself into an expert via the printed word alone. You can commit to memory everything Lichine has to say about Gevrey-Chambertin and still have no idea whether you would like the wine. Reading must be combined with as much drinking experience as pocket and liver will allow.

One final recommendation. You need not take the slightest interest in any of these matters to get a lot out of Cocktail Party Secrets, by Vernon Heaton (Elliot Right Way Books). The title set me off on fantasies about martinis based on industrial alcohol, whisky sours spiked with LSD, etc. And I was hooked by the bold opening statement, offered by way of answer