A Good Drink

Shanna Farrell A Good Drink

In Pursuit of Sustainable Spirits

A fun and illuminating exploration into the sustainable spirits movement and the distillers leading it.

As a bartender, Shanna Farrell not only poured spirits, but learned their stories—who made them and how. In A Good Drink, Farrell goes in search of the bars, distillers, and farmers who are driving a transformation to sustainable spirits. She meets mezcaleros in Guadalajara who are working to preserve traditional ways of producing mezcal; a London bar owner who has eliminated individual bottles and ice; and distillers in South Carolina who are bringing a rare variety of corn back from near extinction, among many others.

For readers who have ever wondered who grew the pears that went into their brandy or why their cocktail is an unnatural shade of red, A Good Drink will be an eye-opening tour of the spirits industry. For anyone who cares about the future of the planet, it offers a hopeful vision of change, one pour at a time.

Social Science/Agriculture & Food September 2021 Hardcover: $29.00 978-1-64283-143-6 Ebook: $28.99 978-1-64283-144-3 232 pages. 6 x 9 Island Press Trade

Shanna Farrell is an interviewer at UC Berkeley’s Oral History Center, where she works on a wide variety of projects and specializes in drink cultural and environmental history. She is the author of Bay Area Cocktails. Her writing has appeared in Imbibe magazine, Life & Thyme, PUNCH, and The San Francisco Chronicle. She holds Master’s Degrees from both New York University and Columbia University.

Author’s residence: San Francisco, California

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