Bartender's Guide .... By Trader Vic: A Manual Including Over 1500 Recipes for the Home and Professional Bartender

by Victor Jules 'Trader Vic' Bergeron

For twenty-five years, professional barkeeps and home mixologists alike have found Trader Vic's Bartender's Guide an invaluable aid. Now, with this revised edition, the popular restaurateur has made this classic handbook even more useful. All the newest mixed-drink creations have been added, the passe concoctions have been dropped, and many recipes have been modernized and streamlined. Here are all the classics -- Martinis, Manhattans, Gimlets, Daiquiris -- 143 exotic Trader Vic specials, and some 1,000 more, including entire chapters on punches, hot drinks, wine cups and other specialties. There's even a collection of tasty non-alcoholic drinks. The all-new illustrations include a comprehensive guide to glasses and other barware. And, of course, the book is filled with the Trader's amusing anecdotes and sensible advice about selecting, preparing and enjoying drinks. In short, the book is practical, entertaining, completely up-to-date -- and likely to remain a fixture on American bars for the next twenty-five years.

Genres: Cookbooks, Reference, Cocktails, Booze, Nonfiction, Cooking, Food

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

Bergeron was the founder of a chain of Polynesian-themed restaurants that bore his nickname (Trader Vic) and one of two people who claimed to have invented the Mai Tai.

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a pretty seminal cocktail guide for 1972. It starts with a pretty good section on bartender and customer etiquette (Sasha Petraske probably dug it when Dale DeGroff gave him a copy in his formative days). And it has most of the classics and tiki drinks of the day in a very simple and accurate manner, with variations. Entire sections of Pisco, Daisies, Juleps, Punches, Fizzes, Rickeys, and specific Southern Comfort recipes definitely sets a time and place.

What a gold mine this must have been those late 90s/early 00s pioneers!

[Steph · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great guide for all bartenders, both amateur and professional. Hailed as one of the best guides in the business, this book certainly does not disappoint. For me, I like to employ this book even more so around the holidays. After all, the holidays are a lot more pleasant with a few libations.

[Rhonda · Rating 5 out of 5]

A classic

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

With chapters titled "The sour apple part of bartending, or the big dealers, phonies, and con artists" and "People that bartenders don't like," you know this book is going to be good. There's also a stinging rebuke of people who claim that they, and not Trader Vic, invented the Mai Tai: "Anybody who says I didn't create this drink is a dirty stinker." The writing's inelegant, but who wants elegant writing from a gruff barkeep?

[Keith · Rating 5 out of 5]

They don't make 'em like that any more.

Written by Trader Vic himself, this book is more than a simple collection of drink recipes. It includes all sorts of bits of wisdom, stories and even a chapter on dealing with phonies and rousting loudmouth louts who try to cheap you on the bill (keep 'em off balance and don't let them grab on to anything).

This is definitely one of my all time favorite books and it's the only one I know of that'll give a guy the "papsy lals", whatever that is.

[Banter3440]

Bought this new in '72. Anyone who ever claimed that no one could make one standard drink that could make him/her drunk never quaffed a Lilani Volcano. Trader Vic's book is still a classic, and when he says a drink stinks, it stinks!

[Susan Molloy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here are over 400 pages of tips on handling people from the bartender’s point of view and the customers on the other side of the bar, the makeup of different liquors (gin, whisky, et cetera) brief histories of certain types of drinks (after dinner, punc