A Christmas gift for the man who drinks everything: Alcoholica Esoterica. From the Amazon book page:
Did you know...
”¢ that the word bar is short for barrier? Yes, that's right–to keep the customers from getting at all the booze.
Ӣ that Winston Churchill's mother supposedly invented the Manhattan?
Ӣ that the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock because the sailors on the Mayflower were running low on beer and were tired of sharing?
Ӣ that you have a higher chance of being killed by a flying Champagne cork than by a poisonous spider?
Ӣ that the Code of Hammurabi mandated that brewers of low-quality beer be drowned in it?
Ӣ that beer was so popular with medieval priests and monks that in the thirteenth century they stopped baptizing babies with holy water and started using beer?
Also worth considering: Man Walks into a Pub: A Sociable History of Beer.
