Over the past decade, the popularity of cocktails has returned with gusto. Amateur and professional mixologists alike have set about recovering not just the craft of the cocktail, but also its history, philosophy, and culture. The Shaken and the Stirred features essays written by distillers, bartenders and amateur mixologists, as well as scholars, all examining the so-called 'Cocktail Revival' and cocktail culture. Why has the cocktail returned with such force? Why has the cocktail always acted as a cultural indicator of class, race, sexuality and politics in both the real and the fictional world? Why has the cocktail revival produced a host of professional organizations, blogs, and conferences devoted to examining and reviving both the drinks and habits of these earlier cultures?

About the Author

Stephen Schneider is Associate Professor of English at the University of Louisville. He is the author of You Can't Padlock an Idea.

Craig N. Owens is Professor of English at Drake University. He is the editor of Pinter Et Cetera.

Reviews

"The cocktail is a thing to drink and also to talk about. The twenty essays in this collection are at the high end of the talk. The authors are distinguished in their various fields and bring historical and theoretical sophistication to their surprisingly varied takes on the subject."-Lowell Edmunds, Rutgers University, author of Martini, Straight Up

"Someone walks into a bar and orders a cocktail, its purpose is to get drunk, and, perhaps, get you drunk. But how you get drunk, what cocktail you order, matters. The Shaken and the Stirred brilliantly shows, each cocktail side by side on the menu here and now gestures to other times, places, worlds, real and imaginary. The essays here decode a cocktail menu into a cultural history of North America. This volume shows how the otherworldly charm and significance of each cocktail emanates from its mythic origins, the way each drink opposes some other drink of another place or another generation, the way drinks recall the charismatic figures who drink them, or the times and places from which they emerged. Drinks are good to think as well as drink. You drink them not simply to get drunk, but, like the eucharist, to imbibe, participate in, these other worlds."-Paul Manning, author of The Semiotics of Drinks and Drinking

Book Information
ISBN 9780253049735
Author Stephen Schneider
Format Hardback
Page Count 432
Imprint Indiana University Press
Publisher Indiana University Press
Weight(grams) 948g