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Cocktail Codex: Fundamentals, Formulas, Evolutions [A Cocktail Recipe Book]
From the authors of the bestselling and genre-defining cocktail book Death & Co , Cocktail Codex is a comprehensive primer on the craft of mixing drinks that employs the authors’ unique “root cocktails” approach to give drink-makers of every level the tools to understand, execute, and improvise both classic and original cocktails.
JAMES BEARD AWARD WINNER • WINNER OF THE TALES OF THE COCKTAIL SPIRITED AWARD® FOR BEST NEW COCKTAIL OR BARTENDING BOOK • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR BY CHICAGO TRIBUNE
“There are only six cocktails.” So say Alex Day, Nick Fauchald, and David Kaplan, the visionaries behind the seminal craft cocktail bar Death & Co. In Cocktail Codex , these experts reveal for the first time their surprisingly simple approach to mastering the “root recipes,” six easily identifiable (and memorizable!) templates that encompass all the old-fashioned, martini, daiquiri, sidecar, whisky highball, and flip. Once you understand the hows and whys of each “family,” you'll understand why some cocktails work and others don't, when to shake and when to stir, what you can omit and what you can substitute when you're missing ingredients, why you like the drinks you do, and what sorts of drinks you should turn to—or invent—if you want to try something new.
Praise for Cocktail Codex
“Learn the template, and any cocktail you can think of is within reach.” — Food & Wine
“Too bad all college textbooks weren’t this much fun.” — Garden & Gun
“A must for amateur and pro mixologists alike.” — Chicago Tribune
“If Dora the Explorer turned twenty-one, split herself into three people, and decided to write the Magna Carta of booze books, this would be the result. And, unlike every other book you’ll read this year, Cocktail Codex is packed with actual knowledge you can use in the real world. Please, please, can Cinema Codex be next?” —Steven Soderbergh, filmmaker
JAMES BEARD AWARD WINNER • WINNER OF THE TALES OF THE COCKTAIL SPIRITED AWARD® FOR BEST NEW COCKTAIL OR BARTENDING BOOK • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR BY CHICAGO TRIBUNE
“There are only six cocktails.” So say Alex Day, Nick Fauchald, and David Kaplan, the visionaries behind the seminal craft cocktail bar Death & Co. In Cocktail Codex , these experts reveal for the first time their surprisingly simple approach to mastering the “root recipes,” six easily identifiable (and memorizable!) templates that encompass all the old-fashioned, martini, daiquiri, sidecar, whisky highball, and flip. Once you understand the hows and whys of each “family,” you'll understand why some cocktails work and others don't, when to shake and when to stir, what you can omit and what you can substitute when you're missing ingredients, why you like the drinks you do, and what sorts of drinks you should turn to—or invent—if you want to try something new.
Praise for Cocktail Codex
“Learn the template, and any cocktail you can think of is within reach.” — Food & Wine
“Too bad all college textbooks weren’t this much fun.” — Garden & Gun
“A must for amateur and pro mixologists alike.” — Chicago Tribune
“If Dora the Explorer turned twenty-one, split herself into three people, and decided to write the Magna Carta of booze books, this would be the result. And, unlike every other book you’ll read this year, Cocktail Codex is packed with actual knowledge you can use in the real world. Please, please, can Cinema Codex be next?” —Steven Soderbergh, filmmaker
320 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2018
472 people are currently reading
1629 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 66 reviews
December 7, 2020
Undoubtedly the best "cocktail how-to" on the market. Meehan's Guide might be better for the aspiring bar GM/owner (it actually cares about turning a profit), Morganthaler's Bar Book might bring a finer touch to issues of technique, and there are some quality historical texts as well, but Cocktail Codex provides virtually all of the information you need to start as a craft cocktail connoisseur-craftsman. Most every industry person I've spoken to agrees (the other answer? Stop reading and learn inside an actual establishment).
The book is structured by reducing all cocktails into six "templates" upon which all others grow. Empirically, I find this conceit arbitrary and dubious, as you can cleave the templates many different ways, but it's effective as an organizing structure. For each cocktail "template", you'll get some discussion of its history, its constituent ingredients (i.e. types of brandy, summarizing the process, typology, and recommended bottles), related cocktail construction techniques, variations, and exercises. More importantly, through practice, you'll absorb a broader gestalt of concepts like "balance", "depth", and "quality", or the art of distinguishing a well-made Daiquiri from a flat one. The only thing really missing off the top of my head is a serious discussion of flavor affinities, adjusting to workflow, and consumer norms.
Each "main six" cocktail, for instance the Old Fashioned, will be broken down into its core (whiskey), balance (sugar/syrup), and seasoning (bitters). This breakdown helpfully explicates where the old fashioned's unified flavor comes from. More importantly, it makes it easy to understand how many cocktails simply swap out another cocktail's core or balance, and then adjust from there. "Okay, a Manhattan is a Martini but for whiskey". This is really useful for categorizing cocktails in your head and understanding where their flavor profiles converge/diverge.
Fortunately, almost every "classic" cocktail is included in this book, though a couple are needlessly omitted. Cocktail Codex's classic recipes are acceptable for most bars (though most high-end bars have at least one classic cocktail they prepare unusually), though they can be needlessly fussy. For instance, their house Dark and Stormy includes a custom ginger syrup and fresh lime, when you can just add ginger beer and squeeze two lime wedges. Unfortunately, the authors omit most "modern classics", like the Paper Plane.
There are also plenty of house-designed cocktails. They all embody Alex Day's ethos: highly complex, highly rigorous. You'll definitely need to plan to make one of their cocktails. They're mostly useful as ideas of what a modern cocktail can be. When I'm designing a new drink, I often flip through their recipes to see what formula I'm approximating, or what recipe might be a counterpoint against which I can innovate.
Most tantalizingly for the home bartender, the book includes an excellent short primer on the Dave Arnold bartending school. You'll learn pressurized infusions, acids, clarifying, smoking, and tinctures. This is stuff (aside from infusions) that you should honestly avoid until you know what you're doing, but it's all very cool and raises your horizons of what a cocktail can be.
There are a few moments where the authors are BSing to maintain the book's structure. Fortunately, they're easy to spot, typically when justifying why a cocktail belongs in its given section, or a given core/seasoning is where it is. There's also a few parts where the authors tell the sorts of lies you'll have to tell customers to keep them happy ("yes! vodka totally has subtle differences. you can totally tell the difference between these vodkas in your martini").
The book is also a nice size/weight, great for a coffee table or tofu press, with excellent crisp design and pretty high-contrast photographs.
The main criticism is that, due to covering everything, nothing is covered in great detail. This is largely true, and furthermore, because the information is densely packed, you'll likely miss most of it upon first reading. Consider Cocktail Codex like this: if you do some of the exercises, practice technique, and memorize the 15 or so most "important" classic cocktails (happy to list them on request), you'll have the basic framework from which to start bartending. This framework will not make you an expert, or even able to competently step behind the bar of a high-end bar, but you will gain a baseline understanding of what's going on. Highly recommended.
Most useful for a home bartender, aspiring craft bartender (be humble!), or someone who wants to see more recent developments in cocktail culture.
The book is structured by reducing all cocktails into six "templates" upon which all others grow. Empirically, I find this conceit arbitrary and dubious, as you can cleave the templates many different ways, but it's effective as an organizing structure. For each cocktail "template", you'll get some discussion of its history, its constituent ingredients (i.e. types of brandy, summarizing the process, typology, and recommended bottles), related cocktail construction techniques, variations, and exercises. More importantly, through practice, you'll absorb a broader gestalt of concepts like "balance", "depth", and "quality", or the art of distinguishing a well-made Daiquiri from a flat one. The only thing really missing off the top of my head is a serious discussion of flavor affinities, adjusting to workflow, and consumer norms.
Each "main six" cocktail, for instance the Old Fashioned, will be broken down into its core (whiskey), balance (sugar/syrup), and seasoning (bitters). This breakdown helpfully explicates where the old fashioned's unified flavor comes from. More importantly, it makes it easy to understand how many cocktails simply swap out another cocktail's core or balance, and then adjust from there. "Okay, a Manhattan is a Martini but for whiskey". This is really useful for categorizing cocktails in your head and understanding where their flavor profiles converge/diverge.
Fortunately, almost every "classic" cocktail is included in this book, though a couple are needlessly omitted. Cocktail Codex's classic recipes are acceptable for most bars (though most high-end bars have at least one classic cocktail they prepare unusually), though they can be needlessly fussy. For instance, their house Dark and Stormy includes a custom ginger syrup and fresh lime, when you can just add ginger beer and squeeze two lime wedges. Unfortunately, the authors omit most "modern classics", like the Paper Plane.
There are also plenty of house-designed cocktails. They all embody Alex Day's ethos: highly complex, highly rigorous. You'll definitely need to plan to make one of their cocktails. They're mostly useful as ideas of what a modern cocktail can be. When I'm designing a new drink, I often flip through their recipes to see what formula I'm approximating, or what recipe might be a counterpoint against which I can innovate.
Most tantalizingly for the home bartender, the book includes an excellent short primer on the Dave Arnold bartending school. You'll learn pressurized infusions, acids, clarifying, smoking, and tinctures. This is stuff (aside from infusions) that you should honestly avoid until you know what you're doing, but it's all very cool and raises your horizons of what a cocktail can be.
There are a few moments where the authors are BSing to maintain the book's structure. Fortunately, they're easy to spot, typically when justifying why a cocktail belongs in its given section, or a given core/seasoning is where it is. There's also a few parts where the authors tell the sorts of lies you'll have to tell customers to keep them happy ("yes! vodka totally has subtle differences. you can totally tell the difference between these vodkas in your martini").
The book is also a nice size/weight, great for a coffee table or tofu press, with excellent crisp design and pretty high-contrast photographs.
The main criticism is that, due to covering everything, nothing is covered in great detail. This is largely true, and furthermore, because the information is densely packed, you'll likely miss most of it upon first reading. Consider Cocktail Codex like this: if you do some of the exercises, practice technique, and memorize the 15 or so most "important" classic cocktails (happy to list them on request), you'll have the basic framework from which to start bartending. This framework will not make you an expert, or even able to competently step behind the bar of a high-end bar, but you will gain a baseline understanding of what's going on. Highly recommended.
Most useful for a home bartender, aspiring craft bartender (be humble!), or someone who wants to see more recent developments in cocktail culture.
March 14, 2023
I bartended on and off throughout university to make ends meet and mostly fumbled my way through various cocktails. Luckily, the majority of my clientele wanted tequila shots or (plastic) glasses of cheap wine, so I never had to make anything super complex.
As an English teacher now I often tell my students there are only 7 basic plot lines, so when this book introduced six universal cocktails, the penny dropped! What a game changer.
The writing is straightforward and articulate, the photos are gorgeous, and the whole package is beautiful! This would make an amazing gift for any home bartender looking to up their hospitality game!
If I had had this book I think I would’ve become a cocktail afficionado 25 years ago. Now coming into my own, I can say that this is so much more than a bartender’s manual; it is, indeed the codex (in a very da Vinci code sort of way). From techniques to mixing different ingredients to playing around with syrups and bitters this book is the best! It’s even allowed me to start experimenting…with some pretty good results. I may return to bartending one day soon.
As an English teacher now I often tell my students there are only 7 basic plot lines, so when this book introduced six universal cocktails, the penny dropped! What a game changer.
The writing is straightforward and articulate, the photos are gorgeous, and the whole package is beautiful! This would make an amazing gift for any home bartender looking to up their hospitality game!
If I had had this book I think I would’ve become a cocktail afficionado 25 years ago. Now coming into my own, I can say that this is so much more than a bartender’s manual; it is, indeed the codex (in a very da Vinci code sort of way). From techniques to mixing different ingredients to playing around with syrups and bitters this book is the best! It’s even allowed me to start experimenting…with some pretty good results. I may return to bartending one day soon.
October 31, 2020
n the interest of full disclosure, I am more of a cocktail drinker than a cocktail maker. I do not even choose the backbone alcohol of a drink on most evenings that I drink cocktails. I have been known to choose sweet over bitter, but that is about as far as I usually go. I recently said to my spouse, who was searching for cocktail inspiration, that it would be perfectly fine to make a margarita. He blanched at the thought. That is simply not how we have been rolling this pandemic. While there is a sameness about everything when all you do is work and home, the attention to the food and drink has been exquisite. It has been astoundingly good to eat and drink at our home, but a part of me worries that we might not return to going out for these sorts of provisions when it feels safe to return to them, at least not in our home town.
This book comes from the Death and Company folks, and that is also a very good cocktail book. This book breaks down drinks into their fundamental components and then offers suggestions about how to build them up again into a variety of different cocktails with different sorts of flavor profiles. I will warn you that the ingredients required to make all of these wonderful creations run into the dozens, and many of them are pricey. It is a real investment to serve superior craft cocktails at home, both in the cash outlay and the making a flavor elements to elevate your cocktails to the next level. If you choose to try this route, you will not be disappointed. And it may help in planning your first trip out of the country post COVID. My spouse informed me France was our destination, and we would be bringing home aperitifs and such that are not available outside of there. Fine by me.
This book comes from the Death and Company folks, and that is also a very good cocktail book. This book breaks down drinks into their fundamental components and then offers suggestions about how to build them up again into a variety of different cocktails with different sorts of flavor profiles. I will warn you that the ingredients required to make all of these wonderful creations run into the dozens, and many of them are pricey. It is a real investment to serve superior craft cocktails at home, both in the cash outlay and the making a flavor elements to elevate your cocktails to the next level. If you choose to try this route, you will not be disappointed. And it may help in planning your first trip out of the country post COVID. My spouse informed me France was our destination, and we would be bringing home aperitifs and such that are not available outside of there. Fine by me.
January 1, 2021
A really great and in depth review of cocktail history and structure. A bit too advanced for an amateur. Many recipes call for obscure bottles I’m just never gonna get.
Read
July 29, 2025After all, you don’t put Château Margaux in a Kalimotxo, you know?
This book is pretty approachable, although I will say there are lines like the one above that made me laugh at the sheer level of inside baseball being thrown around.
I realized these gals and guys were working on an entirely different level when they started describing how they use aftermarket med-lab blood testing machines to clarify citrus juice.
In the process of teaching the reader what comprises a great cocktail, Cocktail Codex also teaches the reader how to enjoy a great cocktail.
This book does for mixed drinks what Andrew Loomis did for drawing the human head, it provides a framework for a typically indescribable process; creating something beautiful from scratch to rendering.
I would be surprised if anyone came away from reading this book without seeing these bartenders and their creations as artists and works of art.
This book is pretty approachable, although I will say there are lines like the one above that made me laugh at the sheer level of inside baseball being thrown around.
I realized these gals and guys were working on an entirely different level when they started describing how they use aftermarket med-lab blood testing machines to clarify citrus juice.
In the process of teaching the reader what comprises a great cocktail, Cocktail Codex also teaches the reader how to enjoy a great cocktail.
This book does for mixed drinks what Andrew Loomis did for drawing the human head, it provides a framework for a typically indescribable process; creating something beautiful from scratch to rendering.
I would be surprised if anyone came away from reading this book without seeing these bartenders and their creations as artists and works of art.
January 3, 2022
This book is an excellent introduction OR deep dive into cocktails. It breaks down drinks into six categories: old-fashioneds, martinis, daiquiris, sidecars, whisky highballs, and flips. Each chapter delves into a different drink, explaining the makeup, variations, and more. This book was helpful explaining the differences between various styles of drinks, and based on the knowledge presented I feel more likely to be able to choose drinks I will enjoy in the future. I've looked over a far amount of cocktail books and this one is definitely the most informative and interesting, enough so that I purchased a copy for myself.
February 11, 2021
A must read for every bartender and advanced mixologists.
August 23, 2021
cocktail bible
March 21, 2022
Нарешті дозрів до відгуку. Ця книга носить правильну назву «коктейльний кодекс». Саме кодекс грає ключову роль. Ця книжка не про рецепти, не про алкоголь, а про культуру приготування коктейлів. Вона не розповідає які інгредієнти треба залити в шейкер, а навіщо самі ці інгредієнти повинні там бути. А стиль написання - окрема тема, навіть манера подачі тексту сприяє тому аби захопитись приготуванням коктейлів
October 22, 2019
Can all cocktails be collapsed into 6 classics? The authors make a compelling case that they can and the result is a mental map of the cocktail universe that is empowering to professional bartenders and amateurs alike.
February 19, 2021
i really enjoyed this as an introduction to cocktails and read it cover to cover. the book is organized around 6 archetypal cocktails, with detailed explanations of how to riff on those cocktails. far more valuable to me, however, was the introduction to spirits and liqueurs themselves. the number of ingredients you can use in cocktails is just enormous, and having some baseline knowledge really helps navigate there; the recommended bottles together with tasting notes also go a long way in this vein. where this book falls apart from my perspective is in its expectations for your bar. if you can afford dozens of spirits and liqueurs (some of which are used in very few cocktails in the book), fine. but if you are slowly building a bar on a budget, it's much harder to know what to buy when, and 'cocktail codex' doesn't really give the home cocktail maker any guidance here. 8/10
January 2, 2022
Finished just in time for me to start dry January! While pretentious at times --although clearly written for would-be bartenders-- it was a really helpful approach to understand basic cocktail formulas, and how changing the spirit or seasoning can create new cocktails. Every step is explained on why they chose to do something a certain way, or why they chose a particular ingredient. One of the most helpful parts were discovering cocktails with sherry. I had researched and bought Amontillado sherry (the exact same one the book ends up recommending), but had only had it neat, did not like it all. I quickly made a couple cocktails from this book on new year's eve with the sherry, and it was surprisingly wonderful. I bought a few extra liqueurs for our home bar, and look forward to experimenting come February.
November 10, 2020
Cocktail Codex builds and improves on its predecessor, Death & Co. It's beautifully designed with gorgeous photos--a book destined for the coffee table. More importantly, I love a good framework, and Alex Day and David Kaplan have developed a very helpful one for cocktail specs. All cocktails, they claim, can be traced back to 6 root recipes: The Old-Fashioned, The Martini, The Daiquiri, The Sidecar, The Whisky Highball, and The Flip. "By studying [these] classic cocktails and explaining how we and others have interpreted these forms, we're providing the foundational knowledge necessary for developing your own artful creations based upon studied skills and knowledge." It's the Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat of cocktails; what's not to love? Strongly recommended for any home enthusiast :)
October 2, 2020
Outstanding, if a bit unreachable cocktail book. Some of the ingredients are hard to source, at least where I live (Aylesbury Duck Vodka, La Favorite Couer de Canne rhum agricole), and some of the tools are not practical for the home enthusiast (centrifuge, smoking gun, iSi Whipper), but the reachable cocktails are fantastic. The method to the madness of categorizing, making and enjoying the various cocktails and their riffs is fascinating and educational. I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with this book and look forward to reading the authors' first cocktail book, "Death & Co: Modern Cocktail Clasics, with More than 500 Recipes."
April 7, 2022
It’s a big ask calling this “the only cocktail book you need,” and yet if we’re talking desert island cocktail books it’s hard to recommend a better one than this. Plenty of great ones out there but this covers everything you could possibly want as a home bartender (unless you’re into tiki drinks, in which case you’ll want the Smuggler’s Cove book instead and thinking on it now yeah that’s a better desert island cocktail book…) making classic cocktails. What tips this over the edge is how NERDY this is getting into all sorts of esoteric techniques and minutiae you can either apply to your own craft or discard.
August 25, 2019
Follow up to Death & Co, this is an interesting approach to a drinks book. Day, Fauchald and Kaplan focus in on six major cocktail archetypes (the Martini, The Daiquiri, etc) and explore in excruciating detail what the core ratios are that define each drink and how bartenders have developed variants over the years (i.e. think of a Manhattan as a Martini with the gin swapped for whisky and the white vermouth for red, or a Margarita as a tequila Sidecar).
It’s an interesting book for anyone interested in how drinks work as opposed to just a list of recipes and highly recommended.
It’s an interesting book for anyone interested in how drinks work as opposed to just a list of recipes and highly recommended.
September 11, 2019
Fantastic premise: most cocktails derive from 6 drink blueprints. Identify those blueprints, and you’ll be able to be creative in your drink mixing.
I’m a complete amateur when it comes to cocktails. This book perfectly articulated the simplicity of the drinks, and also explained the differences between almost all of the major types of spirits (bourbon vs rye, vermouth vs sherry...etc). This was incredibly helpful for my novice expertise.
The book also went into great detail articulating different bottle favorites and flavor profiles for the experts out there.
I’m a complete amateur when it comes to cocktails. This book perfectly articulated the simplicity of the drinks, and also explained the differences between almost all of the major types of spirits (bourbon vs rye, vermouth vs sherry...etc). This was incredibly helpful for my novice expertise.
The book also went into great detail articulating different bottle favorites and flavor profiles for the experts out there.
December 30, 2021
Very much enjoyed READING this, which wasn’t what I was expecting. I am a casual home bartender (at best) but also a home chef, and felt that the authors’ description of what makes a cocktail (core, balance, seasoning) helped me both mix and cook better. That said, most of the recipes are absurdly precious, and unless you actually own a bar, your bar won’t be that well stocked. But excellent recipes for the classics & technique (at least the ones not requiring a €3000 centrifuge) make this a good resource for me.
April 21, 2022
A beautiful book, well organized, packed with history, techniques, and recipes. The central model of base, balance, spice fits well with a lot of cocktail recipes, though it's a little bit of a stretch for some that they squeeze into the sections. The idea reminds me a lot of the book DIY Cocktails, by Marcia Simmons, which also divides up cocktails by their basic ratio, though it has more categories.
Overall, a hearty recommendation. Might not be the best first cocktail book as some of the recipes are complex and call for harder to find bottles, but a great second or twelfth cocktail book.
Overall, a hearty recommendation. Might not be the best first cocktail book as some of the recipes are complex and call for harder to find bottles, but a great second or twelfth cocktail book.
February 3, 2023
My go-to home bar cocktail making book. Includes both technical details and tricks, explanations of why recipes work and how to categorize them, plus just the right set of specs to make plenty of drinks. I especially like the "see which variation you like" specs they have: making you taste test exactly what ratio of simple to sour you like in various cocktails and more.
Liquid Intelligence has more tech details, and plenty of books have a bigger repertoire of specific recipes, but Cocktail Codex hits the sweet spot right in the middle.
Liquid Intelligence has more tech details, and plenty of books have a bigger repertoire of specific recipes, but Cocktail Codex hits the sweet spot right in the middle.
October 10, 2024
It took me 2 and a half years to finish this. Not because it was too long or because it was too complicated to read. But just because I wanted to take it in properly, page by page.
I heared about this book from many great bartenders, so I knew I was in for a treat. But oh my, it did not disappoint. IT. HAS. EVERYTHING. Every bartender should read this. It gave me so many great ideas I am eager to try. They clearly know what they are talking about. And to top it off with beautiful pictures...
This book will be staying on my bookshelf for as long as I'll drink!
I heared about this book from many great bartenders, so I knew I was in for a treat. But oh my, it did not disappoint. IT. HAS. EVERYTHING. Every bartender should read this. It gave me so many great ideas I am eager to try. They clearly know what they are talking about. And to top it off with beautiful pictures...
This book will be staying on my bookshelf for as long as I'll drink!
September 17, 2022
Amazing. I can't even imagine a better book to actually learn about making cocktails. Only thing it's really missing is history and stories of classic cocktails, but that's a different book. This is all ingredients, ideas and techniques. Some techniques go a bit too far for what I (or anyone really) would need at home (ready to get that 4000€ centrifuge?), but it just shows the depth this book goes with the subject. Vast majority of it is still very useful even with a home bar.
January 3, 2023
This is a great resource for seeing how cocktail variations can come from a base cocktail like an old fashioned or a martini. However like all Death and Co books it relies on specific brands of spirits and liqueurs instead of base spirits, liqueurs, and modifiers that are interchangeable. I would love to find a book that builds on ratios of spirits and modifiers that can be used as a foundation for building more variations on the original cocktail.
June 22, 2023
Great starter pack. I don’t like its philosophy that all cocktails can be categorized under the key six (old fashioned, martini, daiquiri, sidecar, highball, and flip). It sounds good on paper, and it’s an interesting way to conceptualize ratios for beginners, but I’ve found it to be useless in more advanced practice. Better as a compendium of classics and examples on how to riff off them. It also is a good introduction to making your own ingredients, from syrups to grenadines and more.
September 22, 2019
Probably the best cocktail book I’ve read! The folks from Death & Co. have narrowed down the world of cocktails into six basic drinks: the old fashioned, martini, daiquiri, sidecar, whiskey highball, and flip. An interesting take that is actually quite convincing. Loved reading this book. As always, Death & Co. does not disappoint.
August 5, 2021
One of the best cocktail books I’ve read so far. Just like their first book, the team of Death & Co. give a great view on mixology and cocktails in general. The concept of the six root cocktails is so interesting and they explain each of these root cocktails so well and extensive. Cocktail Codex truly is a must-have for every cocktail enthusiast!
December 30, 2021
although perhaps a few steps beyond my level of cocktail making I loved this book for the basics - the review of the core basics of drinks, both the traditions, the exansions and variations as well as the chemistry of them. I feel i learned so much from this collection even if i did not follow the recipes laid out.
August 20, 2022
Great resource to learn more about cocktails, recipes, techniques, spirits, etc! The way the book is organized makes it very easy to read and engage with. I've learned many things with this book, and I've added quite a few non-classic cocktail recipes to my repertoire. I would highly recommend to any cocktail enthusiast!
Thanks Dad for the birthday gift!
Thanks Dad for the birthday gift!
September 16, 2022
This book is amazing. Not just great cocktail recipes, but the theory behind each drink, which can help you understand how to make alterations to a recipe to make your own drinks. Some of it I think it out of reach for the typical home bartender (carbonating rigs, centrifuges, immersion circulators to make infused syrups), but it's still interesting to me to see their creativity and artistry.
January 3, 2023
I came into this book a novice and finished it with a fairly robust understanding of cocktail composition, differences between liquors, liquers, and bitters, and balance. I have already made several classic cocktails that I was too intimidated to try before. I cannot recommend this book enough to anyone interested in the overwhelming world of mixology.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 66 reviews