Vodka: A Global History

(Hardback)

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Description

Vodka is the most versatile of spirits. While people in Eastern Europe and the Baltic often drink it neat, swallowing it in one gulp, others use it in cocktails from the Bloody Mary to the vodka Martini or mix it with tonic water or ginger beer to create a refreshing drink. Vodka manufacturers even infuse it with flavours ranging from lemon and strawberry to chocolate, bubble gum and bacon. Created by distilling fermented grains, potatoes or other vegetables, this colourless, flavourless and odourless liquor has been enjoyed by both the rich and the poor throughout its existence, but it has also endured many obstacles along its way to global popularity.

Reviews

"Gin: A Global History and Vodka: A Global History are two delicious, well-mixed cocktails of history and booze. The first thing I learned from these books is alcohol's long-lasting dual effect on society. . . . I also learned that every kind of liquor has its own story. In these handsomely bound little volumes, part of the Edible series from Reaktion Books, the authors retell the centuries-long and always fascinating stories of vodka and gin."-- "The Inquisitive Eater"

Author Bio

Patricia Herlihy is Emeritus Professor of History at Brown University, Rhode Island, and the Louise Doherty Wyant Professor at Emmanuel College, Boston. She is author of Odessa: A History, 1794-1914 (1986) and The Alcoholic Empire: Vodka and Politics and Late Imperial Russia (2002).