To borrow a bit from David Letterman, my next Brass Tacks With Schustack guest needs little introduction. 

In 2007, when my drinks writing career was still in pupa mode, David Wondrich’s then new book Imbibe! was one of the first of its kind. Can you imagine an era when there were only a handful of new books about cocktails that had been written since the 1980s—when the publication of any new cocktail book was an event because there were so few of them available? 

This was that era, and it was one of them. Cocktail books had already been around for centuries, but a retrospective, academic approach to cocktail history and culture was received as a radical concept. You could find out what it was like to get a drink from a bartender who was behind the stick more than a century ago, and the ways the techniques that were applied then still, and should, apply to drink making. You could find out what the hell gomme syrup actually is, and be inspired to make your own.