The book that started it all for me – The Bar Book by Jeffrey Morgenthaler. So I’ve been interested in cocktails/homebartending since college, but it really wasn’t until I got this book a few years ago that I really dove into the subject and started educating myself on it.

There are hundreds of books and even more websites out there focused strictly on recipes for miscellaneous cocktails, but the beauty of this book is that it focuses on the *fundamentals* of crafting drinks, covering topics of technique (shaking, stirring, muddling, infusing, etc) and the science and function of the ingredients that make up a proper cocktail (ice, citrus, bitters, tinctures, syrups, etc).

It’s not full of recipes, but will set you on the right path to create well made cocktails – I mean, anyone can throw together ingredients based on a spec, but it’s infinitely more important to know HOW to *craft* a cocktail to really make it shine. This is the perfect book to get started with mixology and get your feet wet in the world of craft cocktails, so what are you waiting for? Go buy this book, it’s awesome!