BOOK REVIEW: Jazz Age Cocktails: History, Lore, and Recipes from America’s Roaring Twenties by Cecelia Tichi

 I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.

What a delightful history book! Jazz Age Cocktails: History, Lore, and Recipes from America’s Roaring Twenties by Cecelia Tichi is a short and sweet monograph that delivers exactly what the title promises. It makes no attempt to be a comprehensive history of the time, but rather provides a tantalizing taste of the roaring twenties, with chapters covering topics such as bootlegging, slang, the “new woman,” cars, aviation, crime, movies, literature, and more. Each short chapter is followed by themed cocktail recipes. While I suspect I will try one of these recipes before getting around to the vegan recipes from Eat Plants Feel Whole, I haven’t made one of the cocktails yet. (They are heavily oriented toward gin and rum, not favorites of mine, and I haven’t any of the other ingredients at hand.)  More likely, I’ll pick one and see if a local bartender will mix it up for me. But whether or not I indulge in the cocktail, I enjoyed the peek at the Jazz Age. I understand there is a companion volume of Gilded Age cocktails. I’ll have to read that one too.