Find Great Cocktails Anywhere With Destination: Cocktails

By Anthony Todd in Food on Sep 12, 2012 4:00PM

For cocktail-loving travelers, guidebooks can be a frustrating exercise in non-information. Your stylish hotel can't make a martini, the 3-star restaurant uses bottled lemon juice and you have no clue where to find a decent cheap bar. What to do? Enter James Teitelbaum and Destination: Cocktails: The Traveler's Guide To Superior Libations.

Ok, when we travel we aren't in stylish hotels and we can't afford 3-star restaurants. But we are always on the lookout for great cocktails. Teitelbaum, who has also written a guidebook about tiki culture, started working on this book back before craft cocktails exploded and had no idea it would expand into such a huge project.

"At the time I started, it wasn't huge and broad. I was finishing the book about tiki, and I discovered that tiki is a cultural phenomenon, only part of which is the drinks. A lot of tiki bars don't pay much attention to the drinks, so i had to drink lot of crappy drinks. So the places that were really good bars, I began to appreciate. Around the time i finished Tiki Road Trip, I noticed that there were a lot of bars bringing pre-prohibition cocktails back. At that time, around 2006-07, there were only a few places doing this. Now, the movement has gotten huge!"

Hence the need for a comprehensive guidebook. If you're a Chicagoan, there won't be any real surprises on the Chicago list, which includes favorites like Sable, the Violet Hour, The Whistler and others. But it'll give you the sense the Teitelbaum knows his drinks, and you'll trust him to give you recommendations for other cities around the world. If that wasn't enough, his knowing, slightly acerbic introduction was enough to make us take any suggestions he gave. For one thing, he's tired of "speakeasies." Teitelbaum explained:

"I don't mind it when it's used historically. What i'm a little over is people that are new to cocktails calling any bar that knows how to make a Manhattan a speakeasy. The speakeasy was a very specific and unfortunate necessity back in the 1920s. To me, to theme a bar as a speakeasy is kind of ironic. The speakeasies in the 20s marked an all-time low for cocktail culture. Back in 2006 it was kind of clever, but I think the theme is tired now."

He's also wary of what he calls "Bartender Overreach."

"I think that as a customer you should be able to walk in, order what you like, have it served and not be belittled for it. I don't need the validation of being congratulated for what I order. On the other hand, some bars are maintaining a certain standard, level of quality and dignity, and i think denying people bubble gum flavored vodka is crucial to keep the integrity of the craft cocktail movement intact."

What a healthy balance. One thing that might keep fashionistas away, while making real cocktail geeks jump for joy: the book is only about cocktails. If a place serves food, good or bad, it doesn't much matter. If the decor is ugly, Teitelbaum might make a passing mention of it, but that's not the point. This isn't a guide to America's "hottest" cocktail bars; only to America's best.

Now that you're all ready to go buy this book, what happens when you forget it on your nightstand? We asked Teitelbaum what his personal "red flags" are, the things that tell him when a bar is probably going to be bad before his drink even arrives.

"When I walk into a bar and immediately raise an eyebrow: If there is a lot of flavored vodka behind the bar, more than craft gins or interesting rums. The selection of product is the first red flag. You can tell how serious they are by what they are stocking. Also, ice is a big giveaway. If they have a Cold Draft machine, obviously they are pretty serious. If they have a bin of half-melted sloppy ice cubes that will be melted before they come out of the shaker, the drinks aren't very good."

Destination: Cocktails is available now at your local bookstore or on Amazon.com.