Book Review: Tequila Mockingbird: Cocktails with a Literary Twist

Book: Tequila Mockingbird: Cocktails with a Literary Twist

Review Score: 5-stars, Loved it!

Author: Tim Federle

Genre: Nonfiction, Cookbook

Places Featured: N/A

Obviously, I enjoy reading. But, if you know me personally, you know I also enjoy a good beverage (see “From Grape to Glass: Ten Journeys around the World of Wine”) and one of my favorite past-times is sitting in a cozy winery with a good glass of wine in one hand a good book in the other.

I was especially excited, then, to see a book that would combine literature and liquor–Tequila Mockingbird: Cocktails with a Literary Twist. By day, Tim Federle is an actor and a screenwriter, but he is also a self-described “word nerd” and “cocktail enthusiast” and he combines those interests into a fun collection of recipes filled with word play, cute titles, and creative ideas for someone who might enjoy a cocktail while reading or even for a group to enjoy together as they discuss a book.

Divided into five sections (Drinks for Dames, Gulps for Guys, Bevvies for Book Clubs, Refreshments for Recovering Readers, and Bar Bites for Book Hounds), the book provides over seventy recipes for drinks (and a few snacks) inspired by books ranging from classics to children’s literature to horror. Each recipe also includes some notes on each book including information on some film adaptations.

It appears that most drink/book pairings were made based on their names (Bridget Jones’s Daiquiri, The Old Man and the Seagram’s), whereas others were more content related: when discussing Gabriel García Márquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera, Federle says “this book deserves a drink that’s as sweet as love and as spicy as lust”…thus Love in the Time of Kahlua is offered.

Several of the recipes are standard drink recipes that you can find anywhere–look up a recipe for a cosmopolitan and you will find the exact same recipe offered for One Flew Over the Cosmo’s Nest, whereas others are more unique–The Cooler Purple combines blackberry liquer with peach schnapps. I’m also not sure if some of the recipes are really even considered a recipe–Absinthe Shrugged has you combine absinthe and sugar–but the book does also offer helpful basic information on drink-making (glassware, terminology, ideas for garnishes, etc.) and most of the recipes can be made from a basic bar.

This isn’t a book that one would sit down and read cover to cover (though I did spend a few hours skimming and smiling as soon as I received it!), but it’s fun and interesting and the author really is a very clever “word nerd.” I will turn to it in the future for drink ideas (especially when it’s my turn to host book club!)–there’s even a helpful index where you can search by ingredient or book title to find just what you’re looking for.

To quote the author again: “Books down and bottoms up!”