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  • Cocktail Codex: Fundamentals, Formulas, Evolutions [A Cocktail Recipe Book] by Alex Day book cover
  • Cocktail Codex: Fundamentals, Formulas, Evolutions [A Cocktail Recipe Book] by Alex Day book cover
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Cocktail Codex: Fundamentals, Formulas, Evolutions [A Cocktail Recipe Book]

by Alex Day

A framework for understanding cocktails

$33.18 USD
$55.30 USD $33.18 USD
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Awards & Recognition

  • Award recognition

    Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Award winner for Best New Cocktail or Bartending Book

    Winner of Best New Cocktail or Bartending Book

  • Editorial selection

    Named one of the Chicago Tribune’s best cookbooks of the year

    Named one of the best cookbooks of the year

  • Critical praise

    Praised by filmmaker Steven Soderbergh

    Praise: “Cocktail Codex is packed with actual knowledge you can use in the real world.”

AlbakiReads Editorial

A framework for understanding cocktails

Cocktail Codex organizes drink-making around six “root” recipes: the old-fashioned, martini, daiquiri, sidecar, whisky highball, and flip. From these templates, the book explains how cocktails are structured and how choices such as shaking or stirring, omitting ingredients, or making substitutions relate to the finished drink. The approach connects classic formulas with variations and original creations, giving the recipes a broader instructional purpose: learning the underlying patterns makes it easier to adapt them or devise a drink of your own.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Home bartenders seeking a structured introduction to cocktail formulas and techniques.
  • Experienced cocktail makers interested in adapting classic recipes or creating variations.
  • Readers who prefer a conceptual guide to drink-making alongside recipes.

Themes

Cocktail fundamentalsClassic drink familiesTechnique and ingredientsRecipe adaptation and improvisation

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

From the authors of the bestselling and genre-defining cocktail book Death & Co, Cocktail Codex is a comprehensive primer on the craft of mixing drinks that employs the authors' unique "root cocktails" approach to give drink-makers of every level the tools to understand, execute, and improvise both classic and original cocktails.

JAMES BEARD AWARD WINNER - WINNER OF THE TALES OF THE COCKTAIL SPIRITED AWARD(R) FOR BEST NEW COCKTAIL OR BARTENDING BOOK - NAMED ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR BY CHICAGO TRIBUNE

"There are only six cocktails." So say Alex Day, Nick Fauchald, and David Kaplan, the visionaries behind the seminal craft cocktail bar Death & Co. In Cocktail Codex, these experts reveal for the first time their surprisingly simple approach to mastering cocktails: the "root recipes," six easily identifiable (and memorizable!) templates that encompass all cocktails: the old-fashioned, martini, daiquiri, sidecar, whisky highball, and flip. Once you understand the hows and whys of each "family," you'll understand why some cocktails work and others don't, when to shake and when to stir, what you can omit and what you can substitute when you're missing ingredients, why you like the drinks you do, and what sorts of drinks you should turn to--or invent--if you want to try something new.

Praise for Cocktail Codex

"Learn the template, and any cocktail you can think of is within reach."--Food & Wine

"Too bad all college textbooks weren't this much fun."--Garden & Gun

"A must for amateur and pro mixologists alike."--Chicago Tribune

"If Dora the Explorer turned twenty-one, split herself into three people, and decided to write the Magna Carta of booze books, this would be the result. And, unlike every other book you'll read this year, Cocktail Codex is packed with actual knowledge you can use in the real world. Please, please, can Cinema Codex be next?"--Steven Soderbergh, filmmaker
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