Showing titles in Wine & Beverages

With the six lectures of The Everyday Guide to Wines of Italy, you can experience the dynamism of Italian wine for yourself and become your own expert in the tastes, traditions, and innovations from history’s definitive wine-making regions. Delivered by acclaimed Master of Wine Jennifer Simonetti-Bryan, one of the foremost authorities on wines around the world, this course is a chance for you to embark on a delicious, interactive, and unforgettable tasting tour through a country that is equal parts picturesque, romantic, and mysterious.

Journalist Maximillian Potter uncovers a fascinating plot to destroy the vines of La Romance-Conti, Burgundy's finest and most expensive wine. In January 2010, Aubert de Villaine, the famed proprietor of the Domaine de la Romance-Conti, the tiny, storied vineyard that produces the most expensive, exquisite wines in the world, received an anonymous note threatening the destruction of his priceless vines by poison - a crime that in the world of high-end wine is akin to murder - unless he paid a one million euro ransom.

In our fast-paced society of today's world, many people rely on coffee to keep them energized. And what better way to help than to bring the coffee to them?! So why wait? Get started today on your dream business!

Coffee is one of the most valuable commodities in the history of the global economy and the world's most popular drug. The very word 'coffee' is one of the most widespread on the planet. Augustine Sedgewick's brilliant new history tells the hidden and surprising story of how this came to be, tracing coffee's 400-year transformation into an everyday necessity. The story is one that few coffee drinkers know.

Everything the connoisseur could ever want to know about gin, the spirit that sparked a worldwide distilling boom

From award-winning sommelier Shelley Lindgren, who has long been recognized (and now knighted!) for her promotion of lesser-known Italian wines, and acclaimed cookbook author Kate Leahy comes a user-friendly and beautiful guide to Italian wines two decades in the making. The dynamic storytelling duo takes you through a beautifully photographed and delightfully comprehensive journey to understand what Italian wine looks like today: the makers shaping the industry, the innovative ways farmers are adapting to climate change, and the history that paved the path for this current movement.

Around the world, certain drinks - especially those of the intoxicating kind - are synonymous with their peoples and cultures. For Mexico, this drink is tequila. For many, tequila can conjure up scenes of body shots on Cancún bars and coolly garnished margaritas on sandy beaches. Its power is equally strong within Mexico, though there the drink is more often sipped rather than shot, enjoyed casually among friends, and used to commemorate occasions from the everyday to the sacred.

The bar business continues to grow; however, securing running capital and having knowledge about the business are cited as the two biggest reasons new bars fail. Running a Bar for Dummies, 2nd Edition shines a light on these issues to help bar owners prepare properly. The book helps you find your way through the maze of licensing and permits, developing a business plan, and preparing for your grand opening, plus offers clear, no-nonsense guidance on dealing with tough customers. Every step of the way, Running a Bar for Dummies, 2nd Edition is a reference you can count on.

Grab a glass and join acclaimed Master of Wine Jennifer Simonetti-Bryan on a fascinating six-lecture tour of the best wines that France has to offer with The Everyday Guide to Wines of France. This journey is packed with interactive wine tastings, food and wine pairing demonstrations, practical tips and suggestions for shopping and gift giving, and more. The Everyday Guide to Wines of France takes you all across the country on a vibrant search for the best of the best when it comes to French wines.

This novel take on the history of wine reveals that, whether by adding toxic sweeteners or passing off counterfeit bottles, wine fraud is abundant—and as old as wine itself. Vintage Crime will intrigue even the most sated of wine drinkers with its juicy tales of deception, raising interesting questions along the way: what counts as wine, why do we drink it, and what makes a wine truly authentic?

After three years of sipping, spitting, and slogging her way through bushy vine leaves and cellar cobwebs, award-winning writer Natalie MacLean takes listeners behind the scenes of the international wine world, exploring its history, visiting its most evocative places, and meeting some of its most charismatic personalities. In Red, White, and Drunk All Over, Natalie travels to the ancient vineyards of Burgundy to uncover the secrets of the pinot noir, visits the labyrinthine cellars of Champagne to examine the myths and the mystique of luxury bubbly, and helps with the harvest at the vineyards of iconoclastic Californian winemaker Randall Grahm.

Gin’s resurgence is a global phenomenon and a new generation of gin makers are forging an exciting future. Armed with this book, you can count yourself among today’s intrepid creators and build upon gin’s legacy. Award-wining distiller, Marcel Thompson describes the building blocks to help you create high-quality gin.

Russia is famous for its vodka, and its culture of extreme intoxication. But just as vodka is central to the lives of many Russians, it is also central to understanding Russian history and politics. In Vodka Politics, Mark Lawrence Schrad argues that debilitating societal alcoholism is not hard-wired into Russians' genetic code, but rather their autocratic political system, which has long wielded vodka as a tool of statecraft. Through a series of historical investigations stretching from Ivan the Terrible through Vladimir Putin, Vodka Politics presents the secret history of the Russian state itself.

Alcohol and medicine have an inextricably intertwined history, with innovations in each altering the path of the other. The story stretches back to the ancient world, when beer and wine were used to provide nutrition, hydration and act as solvents for healing botanicals. Over time, alchemists distilled elixirs designed to cure all diseases, monastic apothecaries developed mystical botanical liqueurs, travelling physicians concocted dubious intoxicating nostrums and the drinks we’re familiar with today began to take form.

Since its earliest days, The New Yorker has been a tastemaker: literally. As the home of A. J. Liebling, Joseph Wechsberg, and M. F. K. Fisher, who practically invented American food writing, the magazine established a tradition that is carried forward today by irrepressible literary gastronomes, including Calvin Trillin, Bill Buford, Adam Gopnik, Jane Kramer, and Anthony Bourdain. Now, in this indispensable collection, The New Yorker dishes up a feast of delicious writing on food and drink.

The characters in Tasting the Past include a young Swiss scientist who set out to decode the DNA of every single wine grape in the world; Middle Eastern researchers who seek to discover the wines that King David drank; and a University of Pennsylvania academic who has spent decades analyzing wine remains. The science illuminates wine in ways no critic can, and demolishes some of the most sacred dogmas of the industry: well-known French grapes aren't especially noble.

Still drinking Cabernet after that one bottle you liked five years ago? It can be overwhelming if not intimidating to branch out from your go-to grape, but everyone wants their next wine to be new and exciting. How to choose the right one? Award-winning wine critic Alice Feiring presents an all-new way to look at the world of wine. While grape variety is important, a lot can be learned about wine by looking at the source: the ground in which it grows.

In this utterly accessible yet comprehensive guide to wine, Ross will help listeners to understand the ins and outs of wine culture, from how to describe what they're drinking to finding the best bottle for their budget to picking the perfect red for a boyfriend's discerning parents. Told in her signature comedic voice, with personal anecdotes woven in among its lessons, Wine. All the Time. will teach listeners to sip confidently and make them laugh as they're doing it.

On the night of April 17, 1945, Allied planes dropped 111 bombs on the Burghers' Brewery in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia, destroying much of the birthplace of pilsner, the world's most popular beer style and the best-selling alcoholic beverage of all time. Still, workers at the brewery would rally so they could have beer to toast their American, Canadian, and British liberators the following month. It was another twist in pilsner's remarkable story.

If you've never brewed beer before but would like to learn what is involved with it, all you need to do is listen to The Guide to Great Beer Brewing: Basic Beer Making Tips. It contains just the right amount of information to get you started on brewing some great beer. There's even an interesting chapter on the history of beer brewing so that you'll know how it came about.

Patrick E. McGovern takes us on a fascinating journey through time to the dawn of brewing, when our ancestors might well have made a paleo brew of wild fruits, honey, cereals, and botanicals. Early beverage makers must have marveled at the magical process of fermentation. Their amazement grew as they drank the mind-altering drinks, which were to become the medicines, religious symbols, and social lubricants of later cultures.

Gallo Be Thy Name is the portrait of an American dynasty that rose from hardscrabble poverty in the early 1900s to become the most successful wine company in the world through toil, cunning, and crime. From selling Dago Red to Al Capone during Prohibition to conquering America's wine market with such plonk as Thunderbird and Ripple, and from the Great Depression to the roiling farm labor movements of the 60s and 70s, the Gallos rode the turbulent currents of history to triumph, with iconic brothers Ernest and Julio steering the ship.

In this book, we discuss the history of distilling and the history of whiskey in America, how to build your own still, how to create your own batch of home brewed whiskey, and the costs associated with doing so. If you are a novice homebrewer looking to break into the craft brewing hobby, this book is for you!

Forget Starbucks - there's an entire world of coffee waiting to be discovered. Around two billion cups of coffee are consumed across the world every day. Second only to crude oil, it’s the world’s largest traded commodity. The origin of coffee is shrouded in legend, and no one knows for sure exactly how it was discovered (although its discovery is largely attributed to a herd of energetic Ethiopian goats in AD 850). It’s little wonder, then, that coffee is so steeped in culture, with a rich history and a complex social and cultural narrative.

Wine for Beginners is your first step in becoming an expert at wine tasting. Wine is an incredibly technical and nuanced drink, so the ability to pick up on flavors and aromas can seem like a daunting task. This book is a comprehensive and easy-to-read guide on how to properly drink, speak about, and pair wine. You will not only become a more confident wine drinker, but you will also be able to dazzle your friends and family with your knowledge of wine and skill at wine and food pairing.

This book is a celebration of chai, the healthy Ayurvedic drink that is not only woven into the fabric of life in India, but now rapidly growing in popularity and enjoyed across the world. The Book of Chai presents 65 delicious recipes for chai, including recipes using chai spices and dishes to accompany chai. As well as explaining the health benefits and different techniques for making chai, this book contains chais for different seasons, times of day and moods.

This is a short-simple introduction for learning about kombucha for beginners. It is meant as a stepping stone into the exciting field of fermented tea and fermented drinks. What Is kombucha? Kombucha is a fermented drink of black coffee and sugars (from different sources which includes cane sugar, fruit or honey) that's put to use as an effective food. It includes a colony of microorganisms and yeast which are responsible for initiating the fermentation method once coupled with sugar.

The world of premium quality tea is every bit as complex and fascinating as wine, and 19 Lessons On Tea is the ultimate guide to everything you need to know about this healthy and flavorful daily indulgence.

Imagine a workplace where workers enjoyed a well-paid job for life, one where they could start their day with a pint of stout and a smoke, and enjoy free meals in silver service canteens and restaurants. During their breaks they could explore acres of parkland planted with hundreds of trees and thousands of shrubs. This is no fantasy or utopian vision of work but a description of the working conditions enjoyed by employees at the Guinness brewery established at Park Royal in West London in the mid-1930s.

If you enjoy wine - but can’t articulate why - you’re not alone! From terroir to global varieties, Wine: A Beginner’s Guide breaks down the complex bouquets of winemaking and tasting into ways that are fun and easy to understand. Learn what really makes a cabernet sauvignon red. Taste how it’s possible to detect a hint of leather, chocolate, or even rubber in a single sip. Confidently discuss the subtleties of different types of grapes with the guide that has everything you need to know to grow your love of wine.

In his new book, leading neuroscientist Gordon M. Shepherd expands on the startling discovery that the brain creates the taste of wine. This approach to understanding wine's sensory experience draws on findings in neuroscience, biomechanics, human physiology, and traditional enology. Shepherd shows that creating the taste of wine engages more of the brain than does any other human behavior.

Home Brewing: A DIY Guide to Creating Your Own Craft Beer from Scratch is intended as a starting guide to home brewing beer. This book begins with a brief history of the craft brewing industry and its impact on home brewing, then goes into detail about how to get started brewing beer within the comforts of your own home. From equipment to ingredients, we have provided full descriptions of everything you need. It is meant as a guide for absolute beginners.