I think I would like and get along with Matt Teacher, the author of The Spirit of Gin, more than I enjoyed reading his “Stirring Miscellany of the New Gin Revival”.
After reading the Kindle version of the Spirit of Gin, I went to Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena for two reasons.
One. To see if the layout of the book was butchered by trying to fit into the e-format and two, to find a better book on gin because minus a few points learned this book was not what I needed to learn about gin.
I feel spoiled by Tasting Whiskey by Lew Bryson. It has set a high bar for books about spirits. And Teacher’s book doesn’t even come close to that height.
A few reasons why: The photo placement is random. There is no history of gin except for a couple limited paragraphs. There are so many recipes that you would think it is a cocktail book and not a “miscellany”. The organization/skeleton of the book seems haphazard. And according to the percentage read stats, a good 25% is just a list of gins and distillers.
Now that the litany of complaints is mostly complete, we come to my major issue. The tone of the author is weak. Teacher can’t project a newbie vibe which could work well and draw other people in for the ride and certainly doesn’t project an authority of gin information. He closes each and every interview with slight variants of “and I said thank you and left.” It drove me crazy. His handling of interviews was hamhanded. A simple Q&A would have been better suited to his writing style.
What I was looking for as a fan (albeit mostly through gin & tonics) was a history, a primer on styles, distillery practices and examples to start a tasting. What I got was a limited prohibition history with a catalog of gins.
And that is why I went to the bookstore, to get more knowledge.