Hospitality [Hotel, Restaurant & Event Management] (HOSP): Beer, Wine & Spirits

Charting the birth and growth of craft beer across the United States, author Tom Acitelli offers an epic, story-driven account of one of the most inspiring and surprising American grassroots movements. In 1975, there was a single craft brewery in the United States; today there are more than 2,000. Now this once-fledgling movement has become ubiquitous nationwide. This book not only tells the stories of the major figures and businesses within the movement, but it also ties in the movement with larger American culinary developments. It also charts the explosion of the mass-market craft beer culture, including magazines, festivals, and home brewing. This entertaining and informative history brims with charming, remarkable stories, which together weave a very American business tale of formidable odds and refreshing success.

Unraveling the many myths and misconceptions surrounding America's most iconic spirit, this book traces a history that spans frontier rebellion, Gilded Age corruption, and the magic of Madison Avenue. Whiskey has profoundly influenced America's political, economic, and cultural destiny, just as those same factors have inspired the evolution and unique flavor of the whiskey itself.

Walk into a liquor store today and you'll be faced with an unprecedented variety of vodka, gin, whiskey, cognac, rum, and even tequila. In the past decade, the amount of spirits sold in bars, stores and restaurants has climbed nearly 60 percent. Celebrating the acumen of the businessmen and craftsmen responsible for this phenomenal sales growth, this book is a cocktail of history and insight into a rapidly growing industry. Journalist Noah Rothbaum takes readers from the cellars of Cognac, France, to the Scottish Highlands to the agave fields of Mexico to find out what's now driving this age old industry. The book explores new production techniques, cutting-edge marketing campaigns and introduces a new crop of crafty entrepreneurs.

In this book, authors Rob DeSalle and Ian Tattersall use alcoholic beverages as a lens through which to gain a greater appreciation of natural history. This volume considers highly alcoholic spirits in the context of evolution, ecology, history, primatology, molecular biology, physiology, neurobiology, chemistry, and even astrophysics. The text addresses historical and cultural aspects and ingredients, the distillation process, and spirits and their effects. They also call on an international group of colleagues to contribute chapters on brandy, vodka, tequila, whiskies, gin, rum, eaux-de-vie, schnapps, baiju, grappa, orujo, and cachaça. Covering beverages from across the globe and including descriptions of the experience of tasting each drink, this book offers an accessible and comprehensive exploration of the scientific dimensions of spirits.

The original recreational spirit, liqueurs traveled the Silk Road, awaited travelers at the Fountain of Youth, and traversed the globe from ancient times through the Industrial Revolution and beyond. In this thrilling exploration of liqueur's global history, author Lesley Jacobs Solmonson describes how a bitter, medicinal elixir distilled by early alchemists developed into a sugar- and spice-fueled luxury for the rich, before garnishing a variety of cocktails the world over. The book invites readers on a multi-faceted journey through culinary history, driven by humanity's ages-long desire for pleasure.

From the banks of the Delaware River to the shores of Lake Erie, the fields and hillsides of Pennsylvania are home to a rich tradition of winemaking. Though both William Penn and Benjamin Franklin advocated for the production of wine, it was not until 1787 that Pierre Legaux founded the first commercial vineyard in the state (and the nation). Veteran wine journalists Hudson Cattell and Linda Jones McKee offer more than just a taste of the complex story of the Pennsylvania wine industry -- from the discovery of the Alexander grape and the boom of Erie County wineries in the 19th century to the challenges of Prohibition and the first farm wineries that opened in the 1970s. This book explores the Keystone State's distinct wine regions and taps the cask on their robust history.

In March 1791, Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton shocked the western frontier when he proposed a domestic excise tax on whiskey to balance America's national debt. The law, known colloquially as the 'Whiskey Act,' disproportionately penalized farmers in the backcountry, while offering favorable tax incentives designed to protect larger distillers. Although Hamilton viewed the law as a means of both collecting revenue and forcefully imposing federal authority over the notoriously defiant frontier, settlers bristled at its passage. The people of Western Pennsylvania soon turned to violent means of political expression. Treasury officers across the west were targeted for their involvement in the tax collection, and were brutally attacked by armed bands of disgruntled locals. They were tarred and feathered, burned with hot irons, and whipped; their homes were ransacked and burned. In this book, historian Brady J. Crytzer takes the reader on a journey through Western Pennsylvania, following the routes of both the rebels and the United States Army, to place this important event into context for the reader. Complete with images and maps, the text illuminates what visitors can still see from the period, while providing a cogent and engrossing account of how this crisis unfolded and how it was resolved.