Brief Book Review: “Make Your Own Soda: Syrup Recipes for All-natural Pop, Floats, Cocktails, and More”

Make Your Own Soda: Syrup Recipes for All-Natural Pop, Floats, Cocktails, and More by Anton Nocito
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I ran across this at random and picked it up on a whim as I often do with books about concocting drinks–particularly having recently picked up a SodaStream machine for fashioning my own seltzer and sodas at the beginning of the new year. Certainly with some lovely photographs it does a reasonable job of harkening back to an older time. There are a handful of small asides and historical facts – though not nearly enough in my mind and it could have included some photos of early and mid-century soda fountains for all its talk about them. The real star of the book has to be the litany of recipes of which I’ll begin trying a few (and hopefully posting up reviews of those over time.)

I’d put this book in a similar league with my all-time favorite Charles Schumann‘s American Bar: The Artistry of Mixing Drinks which is dense with some great information and recipes for the bartender. This book isn’t quite as “hard core” as Schumann’s, but seems to come pretty close to his rigor for the art of mixology. I read an e-book version, which was generally passable, but I would likely have given it 4 stars had I read what I’m sure is a richer experience in print.

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