See Mix Drink by Brian D. Murphy

See Mix Drink offers a refreshing and simple take on mixing the most popular cocktails. It uses annotated illustrations and straight forward instructions that will make even the most novice bartender feel like a master mixologist.

I loved this book. It's wonderfully presented and very easy to follow. Each two pages spread features tons of information: an annotated illustration, pictorial list of ingredients and/or equipment needed, drink description, best occasion for the drink (like there's a bad time?), time required, proportions of the ingredients, a photo of the finished drink and finally directions for making the drink, in both words and illustrations.

I'm very much a visual learner, so the colourful well-labelled illustrations were a huge plus for me. They are also what makes this book unique. Besides the illustrations I especially enjoyed the drink descriptions that talked about the history of where/how it is was created. A little bar/libation trivia never hurt anyone.

There's also an introduction that features sections on how to use this book, bar essentials (including glasses and barware) and the spirits themselves: brandy, champagne, gin, rum, tequila, vodka, whiskey, and liqueurs.

I loved that the book not only has directions for some of my favourite cocktails: Zombie, Black Russian, Martini, to name a few, but also has directions for ones I haven't heard of: Painkiller, Godmother, Vesper and lots of others I want to try.

The book also has a basic table of contents as well as two indexes. One sorted by name, the other sorted by calories per drink. While the second index is interesting (96 calories for a Black Velvet and 446 for a Long Island Iced Tea) I probably won't use it that much. The information might be useful to some readers, though.

Highly recommended. Summer time is a great time for cocktails. I'm going to stock up the bar, flip to a page and get mixing...and drinking, of course.

For more information about this book, please visit Hachette's website.

I'd like to thank those nice people at Hachette Book Group for this review copy.

See Mix Drink by Brian D. Murphy, Little, Brown and Company (Hachette Book Group), ©2011. ISBN 9780316176712(Hardcover), 232p.