SUGGESTED READING FOR THE COCKTAIL ENTHUSIAST

Bartender Manuals

Jerry Thomas's Bartenders Guide (1862) - foundational guide, the earliest comprehensive American bartending manual
Harry Johnsons's Bartenders' Manual and Guide for Hotels and Restaurants (multiple editions, 1900 one is most widely available) - One of my absolute favorite bar books. There's so much about how to run a bar, and as someone who has managed bars, I can attest to the great advice in this book, even 140 years later!
Hoffman House Bartender's Guide by Charley Mahoney (1912) - Similarly to Johnson's book, there's a lot in there about how to run a bar; but there are also some great recipes that don't appear elsewhere. Warning: this is a kind of macho book and the author was all tied in with the police union bartending contests. That said, it's an interesting piece of history!
George Kappeler’s Modern American Drinks (1895) - great little book from the Gay Nineties!
Recipes for Mixed Drinks by Hugo Ensslin (1917) - a sleeper hit, this one is known but not celebrated as much as it should be!
The Ideal Bartender by Tom Bullock (1917) - first bar guide written by a Black bartender. Bullock was a careful, excellent barman and his original drinks are great and a bit unusual in some cases.
The Savoy Cocktail Book by Harry Craddock (1930) - this is a very important book that came out of London's swanky Prohibition-era bar scene. Prohibition is when the U.S. gave up its preeminence for the first time in 120 years since the cocktail was born. Paris and London in particular became important centers for cocktail culture.
David A. Embury’s The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks (1948) - this is a great post-Prohibition cocktail guide by an amateur cocktail enthusiast. I look on Embury as something of a cocktail version of James Beard or Julia Child, though his era pre-dated the TV food star.
Modern books/compendiums
PDT Cocktail Book by Jim Meehan (2011) - first cocktail book I got and it's a great snapshot of the cocktail renaissance of the late '90s/2000s as well as recipes for classics
Two books by David Wondrich: 1. Imbibe! 2. Punch - Wondrich is the foremost scholar of drinks history of this century. Imbibe! will teach you all about the origins of the American cocktail. Punch is more of an extra-credit thing, as it goes back even further, and is a great survey of the history of punch, which is one of two major ancestors of the cocktail
Cocktail Chronicles by Paul Clarke - this one is great because it groups drinks together that have similar structure or ingredients. That's helpful when trying to build a framework of learning about cocktails
The Waldorf Astoria Bar Book by Frank Caiafa (2016) - one of my favorite books for reference; Frank Caiafa revived one of the Waldorf bars a few years ago and went through every drink in the hotel’s old bar books and also includes other classics. Great recipes.
Spirits Sugar Water Bitters by Derek Brown, with Robert Yule (2019) - probably the most clear, concise cocktail history book written in recent years.
The Bar Book by Jeffrey Morgenthaler (2014) - a great reference for bartending technique and cool recipes for syrup, etc.; Morgenthaler is one of the great innovators of the modern bartending world.
Specific topics
Amaro by Brad Thomas Parsons - amazing resource!
Colonial Spirits by Steven Grasse - great intro to what Americans were drinking during the 18th century
The Martini Cocktail by Robert Simonson - everything you ever wanted to know about the Martini
TIKI: Modern Tropical Cocktails by Shannon Mustipher (2019) - Shannon is a great bartender, a master of the tropical genre, and a personal friend of mine. Her drinks are beautiful, complex and innovative while still maintaining the spirit of the genre.

There's more, of course, but this will give you a good start! Look for reprints of the old bar guides on Cocktail Kingdom's website. And keep in mind that most of those recipes need to be translated or tweaked; look at my recipes on IG and compare with the original recipes, you'll get the hang of it!