A Good Drink
In Pursuit of Sustainable Spirits
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- $28.99
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- $28.99
Publisher Description
“Insightful tour de force… Farrell’s writing is as informative as it is intoxicating” -- Publishers Weekly
Shanna Farrell loves a good drink. As a bartender, she not only poured spirits, but learned their stories—who made them and how. Living in San Francisco, surrounded by farm-to-table restaurants and high-end bars, she wondered why the eco-consciousness devoted to food didn’t extend to drinks.
The short answer is that we don’t think of spirits as food. But whether it’s rum, brandy, whiskey, or tequila, drinks are distilled from the same crops that end up on our tables. Most are grown with chemicals that cause pesticide resistance and pollute waterways, and distilling itself requires huge volumes of water. Even bars are notorious for generating mountains of trash. The good news is that while the good drink movement is far behind the good food movement, it is emerging.
In A Good Drink, Farrell goes in search of the bars, distillers, and farmers who are driving a transformation to sustainable spirits. She meets mezcaleros in Guadalajara who are working to preserve traditional ways of producing mezcal, for the health of the local land, the wallets of the local farmers, and the culture of the community. She visits distillers in South Carolina who are bringing a rare variety of corn back from near extinction to make one of the most sought-after bourbons in the world. She meets a London bar owner who has eliminated individual bottles and ice, acculturating drinkers to a new definition of luxury.
These individuals are part of a growing trend to recognize spirits for what they are—part of our food system. For readers who have ever wondered who grew the pears that went into their brandy or why their cocktail is an unnatural shade of red, A Good Drink will be an eye-opening tour of the spirits industry. For anyone who cares about the future of the planet, it offers a hopeful vision of change, one pour at a time.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Responsible drinking takes on new meaning in this insightful tour de force from journalist Farrell (Bay Area Cocktails). A former bartender from San Francisco, Farrell combines her knowledge of cocktail culture with an expertise in oral history to survey the intersection of hard liquor and environmental well-being. As she travels across the country and into Mexico—eventually migrating to Zoom when Covid-19 strikes—she profiles small-batch distilleries; provides unvarnished histories of various spirits; and chronicles the financial ruin of several bars in the face of the pandemic. Sustainability, social consciousness, and all-natural ingredients are common themes throughout. In the opening section, Farrell focuses on bourbon, tracing its roots in slave labor and profiling a South Carolina distillery that eschews the ubiquitous yellow dent corn in favor of a red heirloom variety. Then she's off to Guadalajara to study the complex regulations that affect the distilling and exporting of mezcal and tequila. A chapter on gin and vodka spotlights Denver's spirits distillery Leopold Bros., "who treat drinking as an agricultural act" by supporting local farmers and using solar power to reduce waste, while another chapter pivots to matters of scale, measuring the financial and environmental risks that come with competing against the international conglomerates that "rule the industry." Farrell's writing is as informative as it is intoxicating.