The Maison Premiere Almanac

Book excerpt: A delightful, imaginative, and thoroughly original cocktail compendium and bartending manual with 90 drink recipes from the popular and influential Brooklyn bar and restaurant. A major player in both the craft cocktail revival and the bar and restaurant renaissance, Maison Premiere offers an immersive experience that channels a time when cocktails were not merely a pleasure but an essential part of daily life in late-nineteenth-century New York, New Orleans, and Paris. As captivating as the bar itself, The Maison Premiere Almanac is both a visual delight—drawing on photography, illustration, and graphic design—and a detailed guide to the rarefied subjects that make Maison Premiere unique, including deep explorations into the art of the cocktail and cutting-edge bartending techniques and equipment. There are also primers on absinthe (a Maison specialty) and recipes for highly refined cocktails, including martinis, toddys, punches, and mint juleps. Tutorials on oysters include how to confidently select and prepare them at home and how to eat them with style. The Almanac is packed with curious information and useful knowledge on cocktails and bartending for both enthusiastic beginner bartenders and seasoned cocktail lovers.