Mondo Cocktail

by Christine Sismondo

Book Overview

The Oxford Dictionary defines cocktail as any combination of diverse elements, especailly potent ones. Mondo Cocktail is as much about the potent elements of literature, history, sociology and business as it is about gin, scotch, vodka and rum. This is a unique, fun and informative narrative history of the cocktail.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1552785114
• ISBN13: 9781552785119
• Release Date: November 2005
• Publisher: McArthur & Company
• Length: 234 Pages
• Weight: 0.97 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 12.4"

Customer Reviews

Mondo Lit

Mondo Cocktail was an unexpected pleasure. I'm rather heavily invested in cocktail books, and a very small percentage of the ones in current distribution are worthy of their subject. Of those that are, I either know or have had some sort of interaction with all of their authors - at least I thought I had. I was woefully unaware of Christine Sismondo. Hers is a literary text, and that's a juxtaposition rarely found: the literary cocktail book. Like other nonfiction books of belletristic note, Mondo Cocktail draws from a wellspring of divergent citations, removed from the central (in this case) cocktail topic, and weaves them artfully into a persuasive narrative. It's both readable and sophisticated. It's also personal in that she stitches herself and her feelings about the subject into the larger tapestry, comfortably, but not self-consciously. She eschews the common stories with their predictable twists, instead opting for her own apparently depthy research. This personal approach invariably introduces elements in the writing with which I disagree, but what a fabulous time I had finding them.

Try the Margarita!!

Best I've ever had. And I don't think the book was meant to be an academic history or anything as the other reviewers seemed to think - more of a humour book, really. I laughed. Out loud. On public transit. Read it at home if you're the easily embarassed type.