Thomas's Reviews > Death & Co: Modern Classic Cocktails

Useful condensed startup guide. It will honestly mostly teach you how to talk about cocktails. You'll learn basic terminology around liquor types, prep and drink-making techniques, how to develop your own cocktail (this is the book's best section), how to coherently describe drinks, and a few historical cocktail archetypes. The book, on a theoretical level, is in line with bartending best practices, so you won't be too out of place if you follow its advice while pursuing a bartending gig. That said, the book only gives a basic primer on the actual techniques, so you'll need to do some trial-and-error if you want to actually learn how to make these things.

Plenty of drink recipes are included, and they're wonderful. However, I'll warn you in advance that the recipes usually contain several ingredients (this is part of why Death & Co is so highly regarded), and anyone with a smaller back bar will be highly limited in actually executing these recipes.
You'll definitely need ango, fresh citrus (lemon, lime, grapefruit), a couple types of hard spirits, grenadine, seltzer, and simple syrup to get anywhere. Probably a couple of lower ABV beverages as well (dry and red vermouth, Campari, Chartreuse, and orange liqueur are all pretty common in the recipe list). The infuriating part of this book is that ingredients aren't included in the index. Meaning: let's say you bought a bottle of Cynar and want to see what you can make. There's no index listing the recipes including Cynar, so you'll have to scan through the 130 pages of recipes looking for "Cynar". Same goes for specific infusions and syrups. Total waste of time. It's a ridiculous and inexcusable oversight.

If you decide to make drinks using this book, unless you're experienced or have a solid bar going, I recommend planning ahead. Choose a recipe that seems interesting and not too full of exotic ingredients (believe me, if you buy a bottle of zoco pacharan navarro liqueuer, I hope you really love that bottle, because it'll be there for a long time). Prepare infusions/syrups/etc in time, as some require days to transfer flavor, and some may require a redo. Then make a couple for friends or family! The recipe structure is ideal for choosing one or two related cocktails for a pre-planned dinner party.

Useful for a home bar enthusiast, or someone who wants to break into into craft cocktails without sounding clueless (if you don't have significant bartending experience, though, show some humility and recognize you'll be a barback/doorman/etc for a while), or an upscale party planner. Lots of fun anecdotes, too.

I think it's a solid first primer for the aspiring bartender, but note that you'll need a more technique-forward book as well, or preferably real-world mentorship. If you only have time for one book, skip this for their sequel Cocktail Codex.