Top 10 new drinks books

The Wine Dine Dictionary by Victoria Moore, £20, published by Granta

One of the wittiest and most honest voices in wine, Victoria Moore, The Telegraph’s wine whiz, aims to solve every possible food and wine pairing conundrum with her Wine Dine Dictionary – an indispensible kitchen bible.

Arranged A-Z by food at one end and A-Z by wine at the other, the handbook will help you make more informed, creative, and darn right delicious choices about what to eat and drink, from Rhône Syrah with rilletes, crispy duck pancakes with a New Zealand Pinot and Petit Verdot with pigeon to an Islay whisky with kippers.

The book begins with an exploration into flavour and taste perception, delving into the science of flavour and how we taste wine. Depending on whether you want to build a meal around a wine or vice versa, you can start at the front of the book with the food, or the back with the wine.

Like having a knowledgeable but non-judgemental sommelier by your side, Moore doesn’t just explain what pairs with what, but why and how the combination works. Written with authority, warmth and wit, it’s the kind of book you’ll keep dipping into for inspiration.

The Cocktail Guy by Rich Woods, £16.99, published by Pavilion 

One of the most original, creative and affable bartenders around, Rich Woods, head of drinks development for Duck & Waffle and Sushisamba, has released his own tome that encourages cocktail lovers to try their hand at homemade sips.

The beautifully illustrated book is packed with 70 different recipes of Woods classics with a few newbies thrown in for good measure. Inside, Woods details his own personal approach to flavour navigating readers through the often complex world of infusing and distilling your own ingredients.

Suited to both absolute beginners and cocktail connoisseurs, this guide to modern cocktail making, will, according to Woods, “engage your senses and ignite your creative desire”. He’s an encouraging mentor, insisting that “there is no such thing as failure – each misstep is another move forward on the path to success.”

Among the quirky cocktail recipes are a Pine Needle Aperol Spritz, Celery Gimlet, Milky Bar Snowball, Clarified Bloody Mary and Truffled Negroni.

Drink More Fizz! by Jonathan Ray, £14.99, published by Quadrille

Bon vivant, seasoned raconteur and an all round good sort, Johnny Ray has had the enviable job of glugging the world’s finest Champagnes and sparkling wines for his new book, Drink More Fizz!, which rounds up his top 100 sparklers.

Boasting a tasteful navy and gold Art Deco cover, this handsome looking book is filled with quotes on Champagne from everyone from Ernest Hemingway to Coco Chanel.

In addition to Ray’s top pics, which include usual suspects like Krug, Bollinger and Pol Roger, alongside the likes of Bellavista, Benjamin Bridge, Ridgeview and Inniskillin sparkling ice wine, the book includes recipes for classic Champagne and Prosecco-based cocktails, alongside mini features on glassware, sugar levels, sparkling wine and food matching, and bottle sizes.

Ray writes with humour and flair, and the book is as fun and frivolous as the fizz on its pages. The ideal stocking filler for the fizz fiend in your life.

Good Together – Drink + Feast with Mr Lyan and Friends by Ryan Chetiyawardana, £16.99, published by Frances Lincoln

There seems to be no stopping cocktail mastermind Ryan Chetiyawardana, who has somehow found the time in between running Dandelyan bar on the Southbank, which was voted the world’s best bar at Tales of the Cocktail, and launching drinks focused restaurant Cub within Super Lyan in Hoxton, to write his second book. The man must never sleep.

Believing good food, drink and company is the recipe for a good time, Ryan has enlisted the help of his high-profile foodie friends to share their favourite dishes. Among the chefs featured are Nuno Mendes from Chiltern Firehouse, James Lowe of Lyle’s, Nieves Barragán Mohacho of Barrafina, the Roca brothers of El Celler de can Roca and Isaac McHale of The Clove Club.

Offering tips on how to entertain in style at every occasion, from summer barbecues to candlelit dinners, the tome also includes cocktail recipes.

Tasting Georgia by Carla Capalbo, £30, published by Pallas Athene

You know you’ve made it in life when the effusive cover quote on your book is by one of the world’s greatest chefs. In Carla Capalbo’s case, it’s René Redzepi of Noma, who describes her weighty tome on Georgian food and wine as: “A book that shows the world perhaps one of the last undiscovered great food cultures of Europe.”

To bring us the book, Capalbo travelled the length and breadth of the beguiling country, gathering recipes and discovering how its wines are made – in clay amphora half buried in the ground. Nestled between the Caucasus Mountains and the Black Sea, Georgia boasts one of the oldest winemaking traditions in the world.

The beautiful looking book features 70 recipes, many of which involve cheese, from cheese and tomato bread and braised meatballs to cold chicken in a spiced walnut sauce. It’s brought to life by its 400 colour photos of the characters Capalbo met along the way. “The warmth and generosity of the people captivated me, as did Georgia’s physical beauty,” she says.

The Modern Cocktail by Matt Whiley, £25, published by Jacqui Small

Don’t be fooled by the understated grey cover – liquid alchemist Matt Whiley, also known as the Talented Mr. Fox, may be understated, but he’s one of the most forward-thinking brains in the industry creating thrillingly novel cocktail concepts that push the conversation forward.

Taking both a scientific and culinary approach to cocktails, Whiley’s creations are made with complex kit, so distilling his methods into something bite-sized and approachable for mere mortals must have been quite an ask.

In his book, foraging fanatic Whiley charts the evolution of both the modern bartender and contemporary cocktails. He spends a lot of time explaining flavour and the five key tastes: sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami, which he breaks down further into the sub-categories of: dry, herbaceous, fruity, floral, aromatic, mineral, smoky and nutty.

There are also sections on the basic cocktail equipment and glassware you’ll need for your creations. Cocktails are handily grouped by spirit: gin, vodka, whisky, vermouth and everything else. Why not try your hand at a Monster Munch Gibson, Peanut Colada or Foraged Negroni…

The Dirty Guide to Wine by Alice Feiring, £20, published by The Countryman Press

Natural wine enthusiast Alice Feiring was ahead of Carla Capalbo on penning a paean to Georgian wine based on her travels throug the country and the winemakers she met there. Her latest book offers a new way of looking at wine, exploring the importance of soil and terroir on the flavour of wine.

The Dirty Guide to Wine groups wines not by grape, not by region, but by soil. The same winning qualities found in a Bordeaux might be found in a Californian Chardonnay, for example. Rather than relying on tasting notes, Feiring explores the ways soil can transcend a grape, showing how a specific soil type can lend acidity or power regardless of the region, and providing a framework for wine lovers to work out what they like and why.

Feiring offers a novel account of the traditions and techniques of wine tasting, demystifying the practice and putting forward a new way to enjoy wine to sommeliers and novices alike.

Spritz by Talia Baiocchi & Leslie Parizeau, £13.99, published by Ten Speed Press 

Brooklyn-born Talia Baiocchi is a busy woman. The editor-in-chief of Punch – an irreverent online drinks magazine, has also penned a popular tome on Sherry. For her next trick she’s teamed up with Leslie Pariseau on Spritz – a fun and approachable guide to the popular Italian apéritivo cocktail.

Boasting a retro mustard and navy blue cover, Spritz takes a deep dive into the colourful history of the apéritivo hour and the cocktails enjoyed at that special time of day when work ends and night, with all its temptations and possibilities, begins. The book takes us up to apéritivo hour’s modern day revival, which coincided with a rise in popularity of bitter spirits like Campari, Aperol and Cynar.

Featuring 50 recipes twisting on the classic Spritz, from The Rib Tickler an the Blood Orange Spritz to the Americano, Rome With a View and the glitzy sounding Diamond Spritz Fizz, which involves Aperol, honey, orange juice and egg white.

In addition to every variant on the Spritz imaginable, the book also includes a fun recipe section at the back of snacks to enjoy while your appetite is whetted, which include the likes of roasted artichokes, baccala mantecato and lardo-wrapped shrimp.

Chasing the Dram by Rachel McCormack, £8.99, published by Simon & Schuster

Scottish cook and food writer Rachel McCormack aims to take whisky out of armchairs and into the kitchen with her entertaining tome. Keen for Scotland’s national drink to be used more in recipes, as research for the book, McCormack travelled the length and breadth of Scotland discovering a myriad of colourful characters creating distinctive Scotch expressions around the country.

McCormack believes that limiting whisky to a drink is similar to the Presbyterian attitude to sex: that it should only be done with the lights off and in the missionary position.

Interspersing an engaging mix of anecdotes, history and information on distillers and recipes, this book will appeal to everyone from whisky connoisseurs to the novice whisky learner looking for guidance on how to weave it into their recipes.

World of Wine by Oz Clarke, £30, published by Pavilion 

Before Oz Clarke became known as a wine personality, he trod the boards with the Royal Shakespeare Company and sung in West End shows. He tends to bring this sense of fun and irreverence both to his TV appearances and the articles he writes on wine.

His latest home, World of Wine, takes the reader on a grand tour of the world’s key wine regions and the grapes that made them famous. From the slopes of the Côte Rôtie, where the grapes are black and sweet, to the snow-capped Andes in Chile, Oz is an entertaining and authoritative guide, imparting jokes and pearls of wisdom in equal measure.

Opinionated and lively, Clarke brings together the best of the New and the Old World in this ideal guide for those with a passion for wine and a thirst for knowledge. Packed full of maps and pretty vineyard pics, it will serve as an ideal study guide for WSET students.

Distillery Cats by Brad Thomas Parsons, £10.99, published by Ten Speed Press 

And finally… we couldn’t help but be charmed by this little book with a big heart on famous distillery cats of past and present, which profiles the courageous plights of the world’s most spirited mousers.

Dotted with illustrations, the book explores the historical role of distillery cats and their evolution to brand ambassadors. James Beard Award-winning author (and noted cat enthusiast) Brad Thomas Parsons profiles 30 of the world’s most adorable distillery cat via interviews, a hand-drawn portrait of each cat, and a trading card-style stat sheets with figures like which years the moggies were active and how many mice they killed.

Among the stars are Sugar Maple from Neslon’s Green Brier Distillery in Nashville and Cooper from Albany Distilling Company in New York. And if that wasn’t entertaining enough, the book also includes 15 cocktail recipes, such as the Ironweed Boulevardier, and quotes from famous cat lovers.