The Bartender's Pantry: A Beverage Handbook for the Universal Bar

by Jim Meehan, Emma Janzen (Primary Contributor), Bart Sasso

A professional guide that surveys and celebrates the culinary ingredients in mixed drinks, with more than 100 recipes from the world’s most creative bartenders and the James Beard Award–winning author of Meehan’s Bartender Manual.

Jim Meehan’s achievements as a pioneering bartender at Gramercy Tavern, The Pegu Club, and PDT in New York City helped pave the path for this generation’s craft cocktail industry. Here, he’s partnered with artist and designer Bart Sasso of Sasso & Co. and Atlanta’s beloved Ticonderoga Club, award-winning author and journalist Emma Janzen, and renowned photographer AJ Meeker on an advanced handbook focused on the zero-proof components of cocktails that make or break the integrity of a drink.

The Bartender’s Pantry includes concise overviews of ten categories of ingredients—sugars, spices, dairy, grains and nuts, fruits, vegetables, flowers and herbs, coffee, tea, soda and mineral water, and ferments—that cover each subject’s modern history in drinks, popular production practices, artisan processing methods, and common distribution channels before suggesting sourcing and service insights from experts in each field. The primers grapple with the challenges producers, distributors, and consumers each face as the ingredient moves through the food chain and into the bartender’s pantry.

Each chapter features artfully illustrated recipes incorporating the featured ingredients that bring the reader into the kitchens of some of the world’s most revered bartenders, baristas, importers, and chefs. Their innovative takes on traditional recipes including horchata, matcha, Turkish coffee, sorrel, kvass, and iced cream are followed by full-page photos of over 50 cocktails that incorporate them including modern classics like the Gin Basil Smash , Earl Grey MarTEAni and Penicillin .

Inspired by kitchen references like Deborah Madison’s Vegetable Literacy and Harold McGee’s Keys to Good Cooking , The Bartender's Pantry is an indispensable handbook for hospitality professionals, curious cooks, and anyone interested in how novel and traditional global beverages are connected to international foodways and our wellbeing itself.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cocktails, Cooking, Food, Reference

384 pages, Paperback

Published June 11, 2024

Reviews

[Jan Sasso · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fabulous “how to” for new and experienced bartenders!

[Hannah Chamberlain · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating and educational read to help drink makers improve their cocktails with a focus on the ingredients outside the bottle. Love the illustrations as well 👏

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Bartender's Pantry is an enjoyable, informative book that would be of help to anyone interested in learning how to source and prepare a wide selection of drinks. In fact, it reads more like a book with recipes than just a straightforward recipe book. The book is divided into the following ten sections with each focusing on that ingredient: sugars, spice, dairy, grains/nuts, fruits, vegetables/flowers/herbs, coffee, tea, soda/mineral water, ferments. Much care is taken to fully explain each ingredient from its history all the way to its consumption. While most recipes are alcoholic, the bases are not and can be enjoyed on their own. As someone who abstains from alcohol, I really appreciated that these recipes provided me with flavorful beverages that were a little something different. Some I enjoyed were a cashew horchata, corn water, and a grapefruit soda. Ten Speed Press provided me with a free copy of this book: the opinions are my own.

[Pixie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mix of useful ingredient recipes and not so useful drink recipes that require oddly specific brands, as if you can afford every niche bottle that someone is trying to market. And the cover is plain brown paper, not glossy, which will bend and tear at best, but for a recipe book that is likely to get wet and dirty, how impractical is that? The publisher, Ten Speed Press, used to be an indie out of Berkeley with excellent titles, but they were bought by a massive company that is obviously putting less-bright, inexperienced staff to work at this imprint. Sad, because the authors clearly worked long and hard on their book and just needed an editorial team making good decisions.

[Brenda Dickson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ten Speed Press provided me with a free copy of this book; the opinions are my own. This is a good and comprehensive guide to a bartender's pantry. Most recipes call for alcohol plus everyday items from one's pantry. The recipes could also be made alcohol free. Admittedly, I am no bartender and rarely have alcohol in my home, but this book would be a very helpful guide for this novice.