A different pond by Bao Phi; illustrated by Thi Bui. What a beautiful picture book. The illustrations are simple and vague-- close in to buildings and streets, so it could be almost any city. Highly recommended.
Sloshies: 102 boozy cocktails straight from the freezer by Jerry Nevins. Unless you have the time, kitchen space, and funds-- not to mention a love of dishwashing-- to make these drinks at least weekly, I can't see owning this book as useful for most individuals. The ingredients are typically pretty specialist, so I couldn't even recommend it for small libraries: Rose hip liqueur? Maraschino liqueur, organic cucumber liqueur, elderflower liqueur? You can't buy that anywhere around our small town. Plus, several brands or ingredients only appeared once or twice in the whole book-- that's a pretty specialized ingredient. In fact, looking at the "Drinks organized by liquor" index (Appendix #4) (a very nice feature, actually), it's more than just a handful of bottles that only get trotted out once or twice.
The book also isn't super accessible. I don't drink mixed drinks much, so I don't know what prosecco is, what "shrub" refers to, or what a grenada is-- a word used heavily in the first chapter but never defined. Brand names were tossed around as if the reader would be familiar with them, too. So, not for beginners.
Maybe all these faults put me off, but to cap it all, each drink title seemed a rather sad and desperate pop-culture reference, and the little descriptions for each were equally hokey. In short, do not recommend. A better book is People's pops: 55 recipes for ice pops, shave ice, and boozy pops from Brooklyn's coolest pop shop by Nathalie Jordi, David Carrell, and Joel Horowitz. Just change the shape of how you freeze (ziploc freezer bag instead of popsicle). People's pops also provides more realistic amounts-- Sloshies figures you want 40 ounces of finished product. We're a 2-adult, 1-drink-a-night (if that) type house, so 16 ounces is plenty.
Seriously, hibiscus liqueur. How long would it take to use up that bottle. Decades? Generations?
... to be fair, I did write down two recipes that seem actually doable.
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