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The Dead Rabbit Drinks Manual: Secret Recipes and Barroom Tales from Two Belfast Boys Who Conquered the Cocktail World
Winner of the Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Award for Best New Cocktail & Bartending Book
Dead Rabbit Grocery & Grog in Lower Manhattan has dominated the bar industry, receiving award after award including World's Best Bar, World’s Best Cocktail Menu, World’s Best Drink Selection, and Best American Cocktail Bar. Now, the critically acclaimed bar has its first cocktail book, The Dead Rabbit Drinks Manual, which, along with its inventive recipes, also details founder Sean Muldoon and bar manager Jack McGarry’s inspiring rags-to-riches story that began in Ireland and has brought them to the top of the cocktail world. Like the bar’s décor, Dead Rabbit’s award-winning drinks are a nod to the “Gangs of New York” era. They range from fizzes to cobblers to toddies, each with its own historical inspiration. There are also recipes for communal punches as well as an entire chapter on absinthe. Along with the recipes and their photos, this stylish and handsome book includes photographs from the bar itself so readers are able to take a peek into the classic world of Dead Rabbit.
Dead Rabbit Grocery & Grog in Lower Manhattan has dominated the bar industry, receiving award after award including World's Best Bar, World’s Best Cocktail Menu, World’s Best Drink Selection, and Best American Cocktail Bar. Now, the critically acclaimed bar has its first cocktail book, The Dead Rabbit Drinks Manual, which, along with its inventive recipes, also details founder Sean Muldoon and bar manager Jack McGarry’s inspiring rags-to-riches story that began in Ireland and has brought them to the top of the cocktail world. Like the bar’s décor, Dead Rabbit’s award-winning drinks are a nod to the “Gangs of New York” era. They range from fizzes to cobblers to toddies, each with its own historical inspiration. There are also recipes for communal punches as well as an entire chapter on absinthe. Along with the recipes and their photos, this stylish and handsome book includes photographs from the bar itself so readers are able to take a peek into the classic world of Dead Rabbit.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published October 13, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
March 17, 2016
Ehh... This was an OK read. It was full of random anecdotes that seemed a bit pretentious - didn't care for this. Other things I didn't like: too much focus on absinthe and it the majority of drinks contained all these obscure liquors that are not readily attainable. Also didn't like the specific brands of liquor listed in every cocktail- seems fussy - instead of listing "Batavia Arrack Van Oosten" (wtf is this? I had to google half the liquors listed) just list something more generic, and in the preface list the author's preferred brand. And then ironically, for all the infused boozes, i.e. Green tea infused gin, they just list generic green tea! Also, I don't give a shit of the drink is vegan- give me a fucking break. Didn't care for this book.
October 21, 2015
Closer to 3.5 but I'll round up in this case.
Recipes are in the typical NY cocktail style that implores you to make special tinctures and syrups for every drink. when you get past all of that though the style/philosophy behind these updated recipes is really interesting and thought provoking.
I know my copy has post it notes and bookmarks all over noting drinks I want to make and I bet yours will too in the end.
Recipes are in the typical NY cocktail style that implores you to make special tinctures and syrups for every drink. when you get past all of that though the style/philosophy behind these updated recipes is really interesting and thought provoking.
I know my copy has post it notes and bookmarks all over noting drinks I want to make and I bet yours will too in the end.
June 5, 2016
I am curious to see if, in ten or twenty years time, there is going to be a group of cocktail books that are going to look at the current recipes floating around and simplify them.
I enjoyed the story of The Dead Rabbit, as well as sharing the philosophies of the two stalwarts who brought this style to popularity. The organization and the visuals are amazing, and the number of tinctures, syrups, and other DIY recipes in the book are fantastic. One of my favorite lines in the book acknowledges the complexity of the cocktails: We must never let the perfect be the enemy of the potable.
Unless you are committed to some serious drinking or throwing parties, there are still some tough recipes in this book. Not from a construction standpoint; most of the cocktails are not difficult to make. But what are you going to do with 750 mL of green tea infused gin? Smaller batches can be made with testing, but there is still some work on your end. This is in combination with some of the rarer spirits you will have to find.
I was inspired to look at new flavor combinations and breaking down cocktails to see what I can do with them. We'll see how finding the spirits goes.
I enjoyed the story of The Dead Rabbit, as well as sharing the philosophies of the two stalwarts who brought this style to popularity. The organization and the visuals are amazing, and the number of tinctures, syrups, and other DIY recipes in the book are fantastic. One of my favorite lines in the book acknowledges the complexity of the cocktails: We must never let the perfect be the enemy of the potable.
Unless you are committed to some serious drinking or throwing parties, there are still some tough recipes in this book. Not from a construction standpoint; most of the cocktails are not difficult to make. But what are you going to do with 750 mL of green tea infused gin? Smaller batches can be made with testing, but there is still some work on your end. This is in combination with some of the rarer spirits you will have to find.
I was inspired to look at new flavor combinations and breaking down cocktails to see what I can do with them. We'll see how finding the spirits goes.
November 14, 2017
As one who feels more comfortable with the reservedness of Finland and Scandinavia, the swagger and the braggadocio of this very Irish book leaves me in a constant state of low-level anxiety, but I cannot but be impressed by the prose my friend Ben has crafted: To imbue a recounting of small business ownership and cocktail research with a sense of the epic and old time grandeur is a feat that makes me smile. Well done, Ben.
The book does have an Achilles heel—one plainly ineluctable due to the subject-matter: The recipes of the Dead Rabbit are so outrageously baroque that mixing just two or three cocktails might be a task on the order of preparing a Thanksgiving feast. Nearly every recipe has at least one sub-recipe and some have multiple. I appreciate the liberal use of whitespace that keeps frequent back-and-forths between pages from becoming labyrinthine, but I'm not sure the clarity of the recipes can offset the herculean efforts they demand.
The book does have an Achilles heel—one plainly ineluctable due to the subject-matter: The recipes of the Dead Rabbit are so outrageously baroque that mixing just two or three cocktails might be a task on the order of preparing a Thanksgiving feast. Nearly every recipe has at least one sub-recipe and some have multiple. I appreciate the liberal use of whitespace that keeps frequent back-and-forths between pages from becoming labyrinthine, but I'm not sure the clarity of the recipes can offset the herculean efforts they demand.
January 19, 2016
These cocktail recipes aren't for the faint-hearted bartender. They're complex and have plenty of steps along with hard to get ingredients. That said--if you're looking to experiment or are interested in modern takes on historical drinks--this is definitely the book for you. Beautiful pictures and lots of good information and interesting recipes
June 26, 2022
An elaborate story trying to make a mythic figure out of a not that admirable persona (industry contests and crass names do not make a hero) front loads a compendium of drink recipes that are too all over the place for making at home. Beautiful design and photographs though.
March 6, 2016
It is a rare recipe book that makes you want to read it cover-to-cover. This is a very rare recipe book indeed.
The question is, does one evaluate it on the readability or the quality of recipes? Fortunately, in this case it hardly matters. Drink-makers extraordinaire Muldoon and McGarry, share some amazing drinks (as of this writing, I've made two myself, and while complicated, they are doable--and the results are well worth it), and as the "voice" of Dead Rabbit, Ben Schaffer makes the stories of the drinks as much fun (or nearly so), as drinking them.
After taking us through the circuitous path that led Muldoon and McGarry to "build the best bar in the world--twice," the book gets down to business. But that business isn't just how to make drinks; the business is reaching back through the history of drink making and putting a new spin on it. That's not just a drink in your hand--that's a conversation across the centuries. Even if you don't feel up to preparing your own coriander tincture or oleo-saccharum, this is a fun read about the history of drinks and the people that love them.
And if you do, well, your guests will be quite thankful indeed.
The question is, does one evaluate it on the readability or the quality of recipes? Fortunately, in this case it hardly matters. Drink-makers extraordinaire Muldoon and McGarry, share some amazing drinks (as of this writing, I've made two myself, and while complicated, they are doable--and the results are well worth it), and as the "voice" of Dead Rabbit, Ben Schaffer makes the stories of the drinks as much fun (or nearly so), as drinking them.
After taking us through the circuitous path that led Muldoon and McGarry to "build the best bar in the world--twice," the book gets down to business. But that business isn't just how to make drinks; the business is reaching back through the history of drink making and putting a new spin on it. That's not just a drink in your hand--that's a conversation across the centuries. Even if you don't feel up to preparing your own coriander tincture or oleo-saccharum, this is a fun read about the history of drinks and the people that love them.
And if you do, well, your guests will be quite thankful indeed.
February 24, 2017
A bit of story of the birth of the bar, followed by quite a few carefully written recipes, many of which are riffs on, rather than reproductions of, some classics, each twisted a bit off true in what appears after a bit to be a very consistent direction. So I was somewhat skeptical. And then I visited the bar itself. And holy heaven, the drinks. were. perfection. So I believe these recipes now, although I've made very few personally thus far. I have some tinctures and bitters to construct first, you see...
Since the publication of this book, the bar has taken the title of World's Best Cocktail Bar at Tales of the Cocktail (in 2016) along with World's Best Cocktail Menu. Both seem well deserved.
Since the publication of this book, the bar has taken the title of World's Best Cocktail Bar at Tales of the Cocktail (in 2016) along with World's Best Cocktail Menu. Both seem well deserved.
March 23, 2016
This was such a fun book! I really enjoyed reading about their careers in mixology (we'd been to Milk & Honey - thanks Virginia!). This is a book of original recipes, all based on historical cocktails. The descriptions of the drinks are in-depth and the authors keep things funny, light and very lively.
Realistically, we only tried a few cocktails because we don't have the ingredients (or time) to drink like this. These are real, multiple step recipes- but they look great.
You're going to need a drink when you read this.
Realistically, we only tried a few cocktails because we don't have the ingredients (or time) to drink like this. These are real, multiple step recipes- but they look great.
You're going to need a drink when you read this.
January 31, 2021
The same self-mythologizing employment history of the titular team of bartenders opens the book, as do most bar-based cocktail books. As for the recipes themselves, they are mostly obscure ingredients. This is good, the World’s Best Bar should have shelves full of the obscure. For me, in the part of the world I live in, the vast majority of the recipes are useless to me with most everything being impossible to obtain. As such, the book is a disappointment but alas, this is a personal matter. Looking forward to making a batch of the Pistachio syrup though.
July 31, 2017
Great NYC bar @ 30 Water Street in the Financial District. Loved their Sour Grapes cocktail - which isn't in this book as it is one of their newer recipes. Book is great. Looking forward to making the Automobile cocktail.
August 4, 2019
For readability and entertainment value, I rate this 4 stars. For usability as an at-home recipe book, I rate it 3 (or maybe even a 2, but I'm feeling generous). And since I read it for free on Kindle Unlimited, I'm willing to round up on that 3.5 average.
First, the entertainment value: I quite enjoyed the story of how The Dead Rabbit came to be. Muldoon's & McGarry's histories are delivered with a intentional veneer of Irish Blarney, so that it's quite clear that they don't take themselves too seriously and they want you to share in the fun. Each of Jack's drink recipes has a comprehensive (and slyly humorous) description of its historical basis and how Jack's decided to tweak it. All the jokes aside, you can't argue that Jack takes his trade seriously, and his love of the subject, past and present, shines through.
Now, the usability: There is no question that these recipes are the epitome of "craft" cocktails. There is an exceptional amount of craft (read: effort) required to reproduce these drinks as written. Pretty much every recipe requires custom "tinctures" or "cordials", and though the recipes for those are included and are objectively interesting, I'm not sure how practical they are to produce. Where do I even get maidenhair fern or eucalyptus for food service use??? (assuming I wanted them) The tinctures, at least, are listed as having unlimited shelf life, but when a batch of cordial only lasts 2-3 weeks in the fridge, how much/many can you practically justify, particularly for a cocktail experiment?
There's also an exceptional inventory of alcohol required, and I strongly question how available the majority of these are to the average consumer. I grant you that I live in the Bible Belt, so therefore our breadth of selection is sadly limited, but I wonder if all of these ingredients are even easily obtainable in New York City. And even if they are, you'd have to have a very high alcohol budget to stock up on all these ingredients (particularly when you're frequently devoting an entire bottle to a particular infusion--hope you like it!!!) Now, the authors say not to let the lack of a specific ingredient prevent you from trying the recipe, but the problem is that I'm not sure how many of the ingredients can even be equivalently substituted.
The largest problem for me is that roughly 80% (or maybe 90--I didn't actually count) of the recipes include absinthe. So, if you love absinthe, THIS IS THE BOOK FOR YOU!!! If you're like me, you flip through going, "Nope. Nope. Nope. Ehhhh, could it maybe be good...it's just a few dashes...but probably nope." McGarry justifies it from a historical accuracy standpoint, but even if there was an absinthe craze in the late 19th century, I'm still willing to bet that the MAJORITY of a bar's offerings didn't contain it. Add to that the inclusion of so many different Bittermens products that you wonder if they're getting a kickback, and it just makes the majority of the book feel highly unattainable. (Yes, I can probably buy the entire Bittermens bitters & shrub line on Amazon, but that comes back to that alcohol budget problem I mentioned.)
Summary: From a scholastic perspective, I quite enjoyed it. For practical application, I just don't see myself pulling this book out when I'm in a cocktail mood.
First, the entertainment value: I quite enjoyed the story of how The Dead Rabbit came to be. Muldoon's & McGarry's histories are delivered with a intentional veneer of Irish Blarney, so that it's quite clear that they don't take themselves too seriously and they want you to share in the fun. Each of Jack's drink recipes has a comprehensive (and slyly humorous) description of its historical basis and how Jack's decided to tweak it. All the jokes aside, you can't argue that Jack takes his trade seriously, and his love of the subject, past and present, shines through.
Now, the usability: There is no question that these recipes are the epitome of "craft" cocktails. There is an exceptional amount of craft (read: effort) required to reproduce these drinks as written. Pretty much every recipe requires custom "tinctures" or "cordials", and though the recipes for those are included and are objectively interesting, I'm not sure how practical they are to produce. Where do I even get maidenhair fern or eucalyptus for food service use??? (assuming I wanted them) The tinctures, at least, are listed as having unlimited shelf life, but when a batch of cordial only lasts 2-3 weeks in the fridge, how much/many can you practically justify, particularly for a cocktail experiment?
There's also an exceptional inventory of alcohol required, and I strongly question how available the majority of these are to the average consumer. I grant you that I live in the Bible Belt, so therefore our breadth of selection is sadly limited, but I wonder if all of these ingredients are even easily obtainable in New York City. And even if they are, you'd have to have a very high alcohol budget to stock up on all these ingredients (particularly when you're frequently devoting an entire bottle to a particular infusion--hope you like it!!!) Now, the authors say not to let the lack of a specific ingredient prevent you from trying the recipe, but the problem is that I'm not sure how many of the ingredients can even be equivalently substituted.
The largest problem for me is that roughly 80% (or maybe 90--I didn't actually count) of the recipes include absinthe. So, if you love absinthe, THIS IS THE BOOK FOR YOU!!! If you're like me, you flip through going, "Nope. Nope. Nope. Ehhhh, could it maybe be good...it's just a few dashes...but probably nope." McGarry justifies it from a historical accuracy standpoint, but even if there was an absinthe craze in the late 19th century, I'm still willing to bet that the MAJORITY of a bar's offerings didn't contain it. Add to that the inclusion of so many different Bittermens products that you wonder if they're getting a kickback, and it just makes the majority of the book feel highly unattainable. (Yes, I can probably buy the entire Bittermens bitters & shrub line on Amazon, but that comes back to that alcohol budget problem I mentioned.)
Summary: From a scholastic perspective, I quite enjoyed it. For practical application, I just don't see myself pulling this book out when I'm in a cocktail mood.
September 9, 2019
Being an avid knitter for over 15 years, I understand how a very niche world has its own celebrities and royalty. Having this knowledge, I tend to enjoy finding these other very niche worlds and their people.
I don't know what rabbit hole brought me to this book, but I'm glad it found me. It's a gorgeous book. Hardcover, with the title embossed into dark linen in a beautiful font. The papers just inside front and back covers (endpapers? Seems I need to learn more about the niche world of bookbinding.) are equally pretty.
This is a book of two men who forged their way in this niche world. It is a history book of mixed drinks. It is a recipe book of cocktails. It is a book of elegant pictures of delicious drinks.
If I have any critiques at all, it would be that in the first part of the book (where it tells the tale of the two men), the pictures are not captioned to know who is who.
I don't know what rabbit hole brought me to this book, but I'm glad it found me. It's a gorgeous book. Hardcover, with the title embossed into dark linen in a beautiful font. The papers just inside front and back covers (endpapers? Seems I need to learn more about the niche world of bookbinding.) are equally pretty.
This is a book of two men who forged their way in this niche world. It is a history book of mixed drinks. It is a recipe book of cocktails. It is a book of elegant pictures of delicious drinks.
If I have any critiques at all, it would be that in the first part of the book (where it tells the tale of the two men), the pictures are not captioned to know who is who.
January 8, 2018
Necessarily one of the best bartending books out there. The drinks are categorized by section with suggested readings coming from the inspiration behind each drink. McGarry and Muldoon’s creativity and stories are fascinating to read about and delicious to drink. Currently making a pistachio syrup as we speak, one of the many recipes that I’ve dog-eared in this manual from one of the best bars in the world.
March 28, 2019
Yes, this is a book of cocktail recipes. But it starts with a story and every chapter begins with the history of a category of drink (punches, smashes, flips and coxktails) and every drink recipe has a story. Yes, I read every single page and every single recipe - while eating breakfast every morning.
June 20, 2019
I'm not so much a fan of the history behind the bar (too much stereotypical Irish blarney for my liking), but I've found some inspiration in the recipes. At first glance the ingredient list is a tad intimidating. Then you spot a pattern and realise you're only a handful of bottles from being able to cover a decent chunk of them.
May 10, 2021
The writing is great and the recipes are interesting but quite out of reach for most people. Due to the niche ingredients and time-consuming preparations I don't think I will ever make anything in this book. But I would love to visit this bar.
March 31, 2023
The recipes can be quite complex, lots of specific alcohols to buy and complex tinctures or syrups. I will look at figuring out a recipe or 2 and going from there. The comic is interesting....not must read material.
October 7, 2018
The finest manual of cocktail and drink recipes that I will probably never make use of.
July 5, 2022
Cool ideas for recipes but they're all SO complicated and unattainable for the average consumer. Pretty pictures though.
April 24, 2017
I loved the first section of the book, reading about Sean and Jack and literally drooling to get back to Belfast or NYC...but the cocktail section felt like it was trying too hard. I admire the range of recipes and the antidotes about different drinks, but the ingredients were outrageous and far fetched. Nothing I will be making at home at all. Bummer.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews