And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails

And a Bottle of Rum tells the raucously entertaining story of America as seen through the bottom of a drinking glass. With a chapter for each of ten cocktails, Wayne Curtis reveals that the homely spirit once distilled from the industrial waste of the exploding sugar trade has managed to infiltrate every stratum of New World society. Curtis takes us from the taverns of the American colonies, where rum delivered both a cheap wallop and cash for the Revolution, to the plundering pirate ships off the coast of Central America, to the watering holes of pre-Castro Cuba, and to the kitsch-laden tiki bars of 1950s America. Here are sugar barons and their armies conquering the Caribbean, Paul Revere stopping for a nip during his famous ride, Prohibitionists marching against demon rum, Hemingway fattening his liver with Havana daiquiris, and today's bartenders reviving old favorites like Planter's Punch. Awash with local color and wry humor, And a Bottle of Rum is an affectionate toast to this most American of liquors, a chameleon spirit that has been constantly reinvented over the centuries by tavern keepers, bootleggers, lounge lizards, and marketing gurus.

About the Author :
Wayne Curtis is the author of The Last Great Walk, an account of Edward Payson Weston's walk from New York to San Francisco in 1909. (He averaged forty miles per day and was seventy years old when he did it.) It's also about what's been lost in the century since we've essentially given up walking in favor of traveling about in upholstered boxes attached to a series of small explosions. Curtis is a contributing editor at the Atlantic magazine, where he writes about travel, architecture, cocktails, and American pop culture. He's also written for numerous other publications, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Smithsonian, American Scholar, Saveur, Men's Journal, Yankee, American Archeology, and the radio show This American Life. In 2002 he was named Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year. He's lived in New Orleans since 2006. Mike Chamberlain is an actor and voice-over performer in Los Angeles whose audiobook narration has won several AudioFile Earphones Awards. His voice credits range from radio commercials and television narration to animation and video game characters. Stage trained at Boston College, he has performed works from Shakespeare and the classics to contemporary drama and comedy.

Review :
[A] charming barhop through cultural history.-- "Publishers Weekly"