Doctors and Distillers

Author: Camper English
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143134922
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 369

Book Description
“At last, a definitive guide to the medicinal origins of every bottle behind the bar! This is the cocktail book of the year, if not the decade.” —Amy Stewart, author of The Drunken Botanist and Wicked Plants “A fascinating book that makes a brilliant historical case for what I’ve been saying all along: alcohol is good for you…okay maybe it’s not technically good for you, but [English] shows that through most of human history, it’s sure beat the heck out of water.” —Alton Brown, creator of Good Eats Beer-based wound care, deworming with wine, whiskey for snakebites, and medicinal mixers to defeat malaria, scurvy, and plague: how today's tipples were the tonics of old. Alcohol and Medicine have an inextricably intertwined history, with innovations in each altering the path of the other. The story stretches back to ancient times, when beer and wine were used to provide nutrition and hydration, and were employed as solvents for healing botanicals. Over time, alchemists distilled elixirs designed to cure all diseases, monastic apothecaries developed mystical botanical liqueurs, traveling physicians concocted dubious intoxicating nostrums, and the drinks we’re familiar with today began to take form. In turn, scientists studied fermentation and formed the germ theory of disease, and developed an understanding of elemental gases and anesthetics. Modern cocktails like the Old-Fashioned, Gimlet, and Gin and Tonic were born as delicious remedies for diseases and discomforts. In Doctors and Distillers, cocktails and spirits expert Camper English reveals how and why the contents of our medicine and liquor cabinets were, until surprisingly recently, one and the same.

Summary of Camper English's Doctors and Distillers

Author: Everest Media,
Publisher: Everest Media LLC
ISBN:
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 43

Book Description
Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1The practice of providing work beer to employees was not limited to ancient times. It was common into the Industrial Revolution, when employers were not trying to create a drunk and docile workforce, but instead wanted to keep people hydrated. #2 The history of alcohol use dates back to the ancient Egyptians, who used it both in medicine and as medicine. The Ebers papyrus, a scroll compiled of older Egyptian medical and magical texts, contains instructions for herbal medicine, surgical procedures, and spells and incantations to cure ailments like crocodile bites and baldness. #3 The ancient Greeks, who were more accustomed to the Mediterranean climate, considered beer to be a foreigner’s beverage. They did not drink their wine neat, but usually mixed it with water. The Greeks knew that water alone could be unhealthy, as they wrote about it in Airs, Waters, Places. #4 Hippocratic authors distinguished different types of wine for its color, concentration, smell, and age. They claimed that white strong wine was beneficial for passing urine and inflamed organs, and that it was also beneficial in acute diseases.

A Good Drink

Author: Shanna Farrell
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1642831433
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 202

Book Description
"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."--Amazon.

Every Home a Distillery

Author: Sarah H. Meacham
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 0801897912
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 202

Book Description
In this original examination of alcohol production in early America, Sarah Hand Meacham uncovers the crucial role women played in cidering and distilling in the colonial Chesapeake. Her fascinating story is one defined by gender, class, technology, and changing patterns of production. Alcohol was essential to colonial life; the region’s water was foul, milk was generally unavailable, and tea and coffee were far too expensive for all but the very wealthy. Colonists used alcohol to drink, in cooking, as a cleaning agent, in beauty products, and as medicine. Meacham finds that the distillation and brewing of alcohol for these purposes traditionally fell to women. Advice and recipes in such guidebooks as The Accomplisht Ladys Delight demonstrate that women were the main producers of alcohol until the middle of the 18th century. Men, mostly small planters, then supplanted women, using new and cheaper technologies to make the region’s cider, ale, and whiskey. Meacham compares alcohol production in the Chesapeake with that in New England, the middle colonies, and Europe, finding the Chesapeake to be far more isolated than even the other American colonies. She explains how home brewers used new technologies, such as small alembic stills and inexpensive cider pressing machines, in their alcoholic enterprises. She links the importation of coffee and tea in America to the temperance movement, showing how the wealthy became concerned with alcohol consumption only after they found something less inebriating to drink. Taking a few pages from contemporary guidebooks, Every Home a Distillery includes samples of historic recipes and instructions on how to make alcoholic beverages. American historians will find this study both enlightening and surprising.

The Ultimate Little Shooter Book

Author: Ray Foley
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
ISBN: 1402257899
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 476

Book Description
"Ray Foley is known as the bartender's bartender. Leave it to him to take the mystery out of mixology!" —Legendary spirits master, author, and marketer Michel Roux Bartenders don't rely on just anyone to create shots and shooters. They turn to Bartender Magazine, published by thirty-year industry veteran Ray Foley, trusted by more than 150,000 barkeeps. Now, you can get your quick sips straight from the top—from Bartender and the best mix masters across America. From sophisticated to fun, this is the only shooter book you'll ever need.

Fundamentals of Distillery Practice

Author: Herman F. Willkie
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781736980200
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 206

Book Description
Written specifically for use in the educational program of the production division of Seagram Distillers Corporation, this volume provides a fundamental explanation of the physical and chemical processes involved in the operation of a grain alcohol distillery.

The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth

Author: Thomas Morris
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1524743690
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 368

Book Description
"Delightfully horrifying."--Popular Science One of Mental Floss's Best Books of 2018 One of Science Friday's Best Science Books of 2018 This wryly humorous collection of stories about bizarre medical treatments and cases offers a unique portrait of a bygone era in all its jaw-dropping weirdness. A puzzling series of dental explosions beginning in the nineteenth century is just one of many strange tales that have long lain undiscovered in the pages of old medical journals. Award-winning medical historian Thomas Morris delivers one of the most remarkable, cringe-inducing collections of stories ever assembled. Witness Mysterious Illnesses (such as the Rhode Island woman who peed through her nose), Horrifying Operations (1781: A French soldier in India operates on his own bladder stone), Tall Tales (like the "amphibious infant" of Chicago, a baby that could apparently swim underwater for half an hour), Unfortunate Predicaments (such as that of the boy who honked like a goose after inhaling a bird's larynx), and a plethora of other marvels. Beyond a series of anecdotes, these painfully amusing stories reveal a great deal about the evolution of modern medicine. Some show the medical profession hopeless in the face of ailments that today would be quickly banished by modern drugs; but others are heartening tales of recovery against the odds, patients saved from death by the devotion or ingenuity of a conscientious doctor. However embarrassing the ailment or ludicrous the treatment, every case in The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth tells us something about the knowledge (and ignorance) of an earlier age, along with the sheer resilience of human life.

Bourbon Empire

Author: Reid Mitenbuler
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698145402
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Book Description
How bourbon came to be, and why it’s experiencing such a revival today Unraveling the many myths and misconceptions surrounding America’s most iconic spirit, Bourbon Empire traces a history that spans frontier rebellion, Gilded Age corruption, and the magic of Madison Avenue. Whiskey has profoundly influenced America’s political, economic, and cultural destiny, just as those same factors have inspired the evolution and unique flavor of the whiskey itself. Taking readers behind the curtain of an enchanting—and sometimes exasperating—industry, the work of writer Reid Mitenbuler crackles with attitude and commentary about taste, choice, and history. Few products better embody the United States, or American business, than bourbon. A tale of innovation, success, downfall, and resurrection, Bourbon Empire is an exploration of the spirit in all its unique forms, creating an indelible portrait of both bourbon and the people who make it.

The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails

Author: David Wondrich
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199311137
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 881

Book Description
The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails presents an in-depth exploration of the world of spirits and cocktails in a ground-breaking synthesis. The Companion covers drinks, processes, and techniques around the world as well as those in the US and Europe. It provides clear explanations of the different ways that spirits are produced, including fermentation, distillation and ageing, alongside a wealth of new detail on the emergence of cocktails and cocktails bars, including entries on key cocktails and influential mixologists and cocktail bars.

Mr. Humble & Dr. Butcher

Author: Brandy Schillace
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982113820
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 217

Book Description
The “delightfully macabre” (The New York Times) true tale of a brilliant and eccentric surgeon…and his quest to transplant the human soul. In the early days of the Cold War, a spirit of desperate scientific rivalry birthed a different kind of space race: not the race to outer space that we all know, but a race to master the inner space of the human body. While surgeons on either side of the Iron Curtain competed to become the first to transplant organs like the kidney and heart, a young American neurosurgeon had an even more ambitious thought: Why not transplant the brain? Dr. Robert White was a friend to two popes and a founder of the Vatican’s Commission on Bioethics. He developed lifesaving neurosurgical techniques still used in hospitals today and was nominated for the Nobel Prize. But like Dr. Jekyll before him, Dr. White had another identity. In his lab, he was waging a battle against the limits of science and against mortality itself—working to perfect a surgery that would allow the soul to live on after the human body had died. This “fascinating” (The Wall Street Journal), “provocative” (The Washington Post) tale follows his decades-long quest into tangled matters of science, Cold War politics, and faith, revealing the complex (and often murky) ethics of experimentation and remarkable innovations that today save patients from certain death. It’s a “masterful” (Science) look at our greatest fears and our greatest hopes—and the long, strange journey from science fiction to science fact.