At the distillery, we’ve had a boozy book club going for several years now. Each month, we read a book that we chose together, and then we get together to discuss it. I prepare a flight of three mini-cocktails paired to the book or themes of the book, and we sip those while we talk. The club is an eclectic group of mostly professional people, both men and women, who get together to discuss a book that we choose as a group – we’ve been labeled as “intellectual” by some who felt they didn’t fit in, and I guess that’s probably right.

We’ve read a pretty broad array of books over the years, including a lot of historical fiction, some autobiographies, memoirs & biographies, the occasional suspense story or detective novel, one book of poetry, and a few works of classic literature. When choosing our November 2022 book, we had a hard time deciding on anything we were really interested in – so we let the fates decide by spinning the distillery’s “Wheel of Indecision” to choose from some titles found on Goodreads and Amazon.

This month, in my opinion, Amazon gave us a bad suggestion. We read The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix (full disclosure, I listened to it). Suffice to say, I pretty much agree with everything this person wrote about it.

Cocktail Flight for the Book

Another strike against this book for me is that there aren’t any cocktails in it – the characters drink cheap wine, mostly. So, I had to look deeper into the themes to identify some options. Here’s what I’ve come up with to serve. I’m very interested to see how everyone else felt about this book!

• The Charleston – the novel is set in Charleston, so this one seems like a good candidate. Plus it’s a new cocktail to me, and therefore likely to the club, so it’ll be something new. I’m using this recipe, with our bourbon-style whiskey and Broadbent Madeira.
  
• Planter’s Punch – some claim this drink was invented in Charleston, but it was more likely invented in Jamaica or somewhere tropical. Nonetheless, it fits the style of “porch pounders” that are common in super hot places like Charleston in the summer. I’m updating our typical recipe a bit to make it more holiday-friendly, and also new for the club. The recipe will be 2 oz of our Third Coast Rum, 3/4 oz pineapple juice, 3/4 oz cranberry-orange simple, 3/4 oz fresh lime and 1 dash of Angostura bitters, shaken with ice.
  
• Peach Pie – in the book, there’s a pretty gruesome story told about a peach tree. So, I decided to make a dessert-style drink with peach. The recipe will be 1-1/4 oz North Shore Vodka, 1 oz Mathilde Peach Liqueur, 1/2 oz Fresh Lime, 1/4 oz Demerara Simple, 1 oz Egg White. I’ll dry shake, then shake with ice vigorously before serving.

Cheers & happy reading/sipping!