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How to Booze: Exquisite Cocktails and Unsound Advice – A Hilarious Guide to Mixology and Life
Offering exquisite cocktails and unsound advice, How to Booze by Jordan Kaye and Marshall Altier pairs the perfect cocktail with unfailingly entertaining advice for all of life’s most alcohol-inducing moments. Much more than just a guide to mixology, How to Booze is a hilarious and remarkably prescient, if somewhat degenerate, guide to life—or at least that part of life that would be greatly improved in the company of Johnny Walker or Jack Daniels.
- GenresNonfictionFoodCookbooks
224 pages, Paperback
First published April 29, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
April 30, 2010
This one went with me everywhere until I finished it - in my pocketbook, to dismissal time at the elementary school, along for the ride any time my husband was driving, and most importantly, to the liquor store to buy new bottles of dark rum, gin, bitters, maraschino liqueur, and absinthe (I already had the Lillet Blanc and the elderflower liqueur).
Now we live in a heaven of Friday afternoon cocktails, interesting, complex, delicious things like the rum daisy, the Sazerac, and the Perfect Manhattan. And while we drink them, I read aloud from this extremely funny book.
The authors - a bartender and a lawyer, and if that doesn't sound like the setup for a ribald joke I do not know what does - conjure the perfect situations for drinking their favorite cocktails. Revenge adultery? The French 75 (gin, lemon juice, champagne, mmm). Threesome? The Negroni (to which I say HEY! That's MY cocktail, and I am NOT that kind of girl!). Looking for a fight? Start drinking Bobby Burns cocktails after work and by seven pm you will be bloody and grinning.
Offensive, oh yes. Marvelously so.
Now we live in a heaven of Friday afternoon cocktails, interesting, complex, delicious things like the rum daisy, the Sazerac, and the Perfect Manhattan. And while we drink them, I read aloud from this extremely funny book.
The authors - a bartender and a lawyer, and if that doesn't sound like the setup for a ribald joke I do not know what does - conjure the perfect situations for drinking their favorite cocktails. Revenge adultery? The French 75 (gin, lemon juice, champagne, mmm). Threesome? The Negroni (to which I say HEY! That's MY cocktail, and I am NOT that kind of girl!). Looking for a fight? Start drinking Bobby Burns cocktails after work and by seven pm you will be bloody and grinning.
Offensive, oh yes. Marvelously so.
April 19, 2018
Very humorous and irreverent, but with lots of useful tips and recipes for a lot of tasty cocktails. Kate gives some interesting historical notes and some truly bad life advice; bad, but tastelessly funny. Cheers. Check it out.
May 1, 2021
Booze and humor: always a great pair. Jordan Kaye and Marshall Altier have put these two things together in a funny, and sometimes pretty raunchy, bar book filled with tips on the perfect drink, history of classic cocktails, and frat-boy level humor in How to Booze. As a bar book, I actually love the indexing. The guys have divided the index by spirit and then within each spirit by how well-stocked your liquor cabinet may be. Looking for a simple drink with gin? Try a classic gimlet, which is by the way, the recommended drink for your second date. Prefer rum? Someone with a well-stocked (geeked out) bar might prefer a Mai Tai Roa-Ae to serve at a barbecue. I’d say any of the drinks inside would make a good accompaniment for reading Kaye and Altier’s “Unsound Advice.” Like I said, booze and humor always make a good pairing.
June 27, 2025
As far as cocktail books go this is a weird but wonderful entry. The weird stories in these pages are paired with delicious cocktail recipes for beginners and initiate alike. The result is a bizarre concoction that is useful, horny, boozy, and delicious.
May 17, 2022
This is charming in a morose way.
August 8, 2012
“This book’s gimmick—half bartender’s guide, half advice column—is a good one, and reading it is like getting a talking-to from a bartender who’s seen it all. Not only does he know that people never change, he also has no vested interest in getting you to stop drinking, either. He is good, however, at helping you find the right drink in which to drown your sorrows. Kaye, a lawyer who has worked as a bartender and sommelier, and Altier, a bartender and drinks consultant, keep the patter snappy as they cover proper drink pairings for the times of your life, from first date to last rites, with entertaining entries for such unique crises as “Drowning Out the Ticking of Your Biological Clock” and “Realizing Your Child Is a Fucking Idiot”....the drinks advice is remarkably good, from empowering explanations of cocktail fundamentals to variations on classics that are well worth trying.” —Booklist
“In their introduction, experienced barhands Altier and Kaye state that a 'good drink, when it's put together right and is suited to the occasion, transforms you into a better version of yourself,' setting the tone for this sharp guide to drinks for every conceivable occasion. Buoyed by wit as bracing as a gin martini, the duo lead a tour through dozens of cocktails, offering suggestions for the end of a long unlucky streak (a Gin Rickey) and when sitting next to a movie star (the rum and fruit-juicy Mary Pickford) as well as more commonplace events like meeting the in-laws (the gin-based Fine and Dandy), a high school reunion (a Rusty Nail), or flying coach (a Madras). Rather than devolving into sheer novelty, misogyny or mean-spiritedness, the authors deftly walk the line (rare exceptions include 'last drink before AA'), offering cogent information on a drink's creation and characteristics, along with sharp commentary such as '[y]our sexual orientation is at best a self-fulfilling prophecy, and not a very interesting one at that' in the entry for sexual experimentation (calling for a rye-and-maraschino liqueur Fancy Free). The duo, veteran New York drink-slingers both (Altier currently runs a Manhattan bar), keep a canny balance between the educational and the irreverent, making for a terrifically entertaining guide to informed imbibing. –Publisher's Weekly, starred review
“Prepare to make delicious drinks and then spurt them out your nose all over your kitchen laughing at this naughty cocktail and awkward-social-situation survival guide...Aptly fitting cocktail recipes to deal with any scary situation without fear of judgment.” --Drink Me Magazine
“Two long-time NYC bartenders...offer up expert-level information on each drink and its characteristics, while doling out equal services of the kind of life advice that comes from years of listening to people bare their souls and chests at the bar.” --Accidental Words.com
“Written by two NYC bartenders who have seen their fair share of uninformed drunks. This book...is for those of you who claim to know "how to booze," but lack the knowledge and sophistication of a refined gentleman who knows what to order and when. Not only that, but the book also offers life lessons learned from years behind the bar.” --Refinity.blogspot.com
“In their introduction, experienced barhands Altier and Kaye state that a 'good drink, when it's put together right and is suited to the occasion, transforms you into a better version of yourself,' setting the tone for this sharp guide to drinks for every conceivable occasion. Buoyed by wit as bracing as a gin martini, the duo lead a tour through dozens of cocktails, offering suggestions for the end of a long unlucky streak (a Gin Rickey) and when sitting next to a movie star (the rum and fruit-juicy Mary Pickford) as well as more commonplace events like meeting the in-laws (the gin-based Fine and Dandy), a high school reunion (a Rusty Nail), or flying coach (a Madras). Rather than devolving into sheer novelty, misogyny or mean-spiritedness, the authors deftly walk the line (rare exceptions include 'last drink before AA'), offering cogent information on a drink's creation and characteristics, along with sharp commentary such as '[y]our sexual orientation is at best a self-fulfilling prophecy, and not a very interesting one at that' in the entry for sexual experimentation (calling for a rye-and-maraschino liqueur Fancy Free). The duo, veteran New York drink-slingers both (Altier currently runs a Manhattan bar), keep a canny balance between the educational and the irreverent, making for a terrifically entertaining guide to informed imbibing. –Publisher's Weekly, starred review
“Prepare to make delicious drinks and then spurt them out your nose all over your kitchen laughing at this naughty cocktail and awkward-social-situation survival guide...Aptly fitting cocktail recipes to deal with any scary situation without fear of judgment.” --Drink Me Magazine
“Two long-time NYC bartenders...offer up expert-level information on each drink and its characteristics, while doling out equal services of the kind of life advice that comes from years of listening to people bare their souls and chests at the bar.” --Accidental Words.com
“Written by two NYC bartenders who have seen their fair share of uninformed drunks. This book...is for those of you who claim to know "how to booze," but lack the knowledge and sophistication of a refined gentleman who knows what to order and when. Not only that, but the book also offers life lessons learned from years behind the bar.” --Refinity.blogspot.com
November 13, 2011
I recently saw Jordan Kaye at a book festival where he demonstrated making a few of the cocktails from his book (one of which I got to taste test--yum!); he was both personable and funny, and mentioned that he was married with children (I think he said "two."). But I found the book to be more of a statement about the authors' distress over having to grow up than a useful, amusing advisory on matching cocktails with common social situations.
The book is subtitled: Exquisite Cocktails & Unsound Advice, which is pretty accurate, so I cannot say the book didn't live up to the title's expectations. But its attitude displayed too much college frat boy prankishness ,and featured too few situations in which I expect to find myself. In addition, some of the most useful advice--such as primers on types of spirits and basic mixing techniques--is poorly presented and hard to find (it is scattered throughout the book, and there is no index). As long as you prefer gin and whisky drinks to vodka, as the authors do, the recipes are very good; however, you may be better off getting them from a standard bar book rather than wading through the adolescent advice presented here.
The drinking situations include "bedding down the homely," (for which the authors recommend a Dry Gin Martini because it somehow represents "selflessness" and "hedonism.") In addition, they thoughtfully warn the reader that "You cannot f**k ugly in the morning." Apparently there is no drink good enough for that. Other situations warranting imbibing include stalking your ex, participating in a threesome, calling in sick just so that you can listen to NPR (?), drinking while you're pregnant(a chapter called, "Mom drank with me..and I'm fine"), drunk dialing, participating in a threesome, being with people you despise, putting down the family pet (gah!),and the final drink to enjoy on your death bed (a Rob Roy, in case you were curious).
Of course I've been focusing only on the negative. They also include drinks for meeting with old friends, high school reunions, getting married, and others. But for me, the negative outweighed the positive and even though I was aware that the authors meant it to be tongue-in-cheek, I didn't feel the funny. I'll still try the drinks--and perhaps I'll even manage to invent a drink that will make reading this book more of a pleasure.
The book is subtitled: Exquisite Cocktails & Unsound Advice, which is pretty accurate, so I cannot say the book didn't live up to the title's expectations. But its attitude displayed too much college frat boy prankishness ,and featured too few situations in which I expect to find myself. In addition, some of the most useful advice--such as primers on types of spirits and basic mixing techniques--is poorly presented and hard to find (it is scattered throughout the book, and there is no index). As long as you prefer gin and whisky drinks to vodka, as the authors do, the recipes are very good; however, you may be better off getting them from a standard bar book rather than wading through the adolescent advice presented here.
The drinking situations include "bedding down the homely," (for which the authors recommend a Dry Gin Martini because it somehow represents "selflessness" and "hedonism.") In addition, they thoughtfully warn the reader that "You cannot f**k ugly in the morning." Apparently there is no drink good enough for that. Other situations warranting imbibing include stalking your ex, participating in a threesome, calling in sick just so that you can listen to NPR (?), drinking while you're pregnant(a chapter called, "Mom drank with me..and I'm fine"), drunk dialing, participating in a threesome, being with people you despise, putting down the family pet (gah!),and the final drink to enjoy on your death bed (a Rob Roy, in case you were curious).
Of course I've been focusing only on the negative. They also include drinks for meeting with old friends, high school reunions, getting married, and others. But for me, the negative outweighed the positive and even though I was aware that the authors meant it to be tongue-in-cheek, I didn't feel the funny. I'll still try the drinks--and perhaps I'll even manage to invent a drink that will make reading this book more of a pleasure.
April 13, 2011
Absolutely fun and entertaining. Their "advice" is wonderfully tongue-in-cheek and smart-assed. The authors are funny and engaging, and, more importantly, the drinks sound fantastic. They include recipes for a number of traditional and nontraditional drinks, and discuss the different natures and tastes of the most common spirits, aperitifs and bitters. Their discussions are probably the most useful, since if you're not familiar with something in their, it explains the item to you and gives you an idea about how to mix it on your own with an original recipe. This book was great and I'd totally recommend it for anyone.
January 31, 2011
I'm going to need to add a line to my budget for booze in order to properly stock my bar if I'm going to have many of these.
This is a fun, if slightly depressing read. Highly recommended if you are looking for boozing ideas.
This is a fun, if slightly depressing read. Highly recommended if you are looking for boozing ideas.
June 25, 2011
Fun, informative, and just right to wet the appetite.
July 18, 2011
not sure i would ever try some of the cocktails, due to the rarity of ingredients and my current location (Puritan Pennsylvania), but i laughed aloud almost on every page. brilliantly written.
August 13, 2012
A wry and cheeky look at the proper sip for any of life's situations. Be it a cup of courage or a celebratory shot, Kaye's got you covered.
March 26, 2016
"We realize that living more fully means simply embracing the evening, with all its charms and flaws."
I enjoyed this book well enough, but it really was filled with terrible advice.
I enjoyed this book well enough, but it really was filled with terrible advice.
February 25, 2012
This was definitely one of the most quotable books I've ever read.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews