A good drink In pursuit of sustainable spirits

When it comes to sustainable food, minds generally go to farm-to-table cooking. Farrell (Oral History Center, Univ. of California, Berkeley) challenges this oversimplification with a thoughtful look at sustainable spirits. Though people may not think of spirits as food, the same concerns about the sustainability of the food supply--pesticides, herbicides, wastewater, labor, GMOs, food waste, climate change, additives, and the like--apply to the grains, fruits, agave, sugarcane, and botanicals distilled into people's favorite spirits. Farrell tells the stories of sustainable spirits and advocates for a better food system from the vantage point of this vast but understudied sector. Following an introduction, the first five chapters are ordered by spirit type and weave together a personal narrative (Farrell is also a bartender), didactic overviews of various spirits, and excerpted interviews. Next follows a chapter on bartenders, then a chapter formally addressing scalability. The book reads like a compelling long-form piece of journalism and concludes with a plea to consumers that if they are serious about sustainable food and beverages, they must demand more of the spirits industry. This is a welcome spirits-focused complement to Sandra Taylor's The Business of Sustainable Wine (2017). Summing Up: Recommended. All readers. --Jonathan M Deutsch, Drexel University

Responsible drinking takes on new meaning in this insightful tour de force from journalist Farrell (Bay Area Cocktails). A former bartender from San Francisco, Farrell combines her knowledge of cocktail culture with an expertise in oral history to survey the intersection of hard liquor and environmental well-being. As she travels across the country and into Mexico--eventually migrating to Zoom when Covid-19 strikes--she profiles small-batch distilleries; provides unvarnished histories of various spirits; and chronicles the financial ruin of several bars in the face of the pandemic. Sustainability, social consciousness, and all-natural ingredients are common themes throughout. In the opening section, Farrell focuses on bourbon, tracing its roots in slave labor and profiling a South Carolina distillery that eschews the ubiquitous yellow dent corn in favor of a red heirloom variety. Then she's off to Guadalajara to study the complex regulations that affect the distilling and exporting of mezcal and tequila. A chapter on gin and vodka spotlights Denver's spirits distillery Leopold Bros., "who treat drinking as an agricultural act" by supporting local farmers and using solar power to reduce waste, while another chapter pivots to matters of scale, measuring the financial and environmental risks that come with competing against the international conglomerates that "rule the industry." Farrell's writing is as informative as it is intoxicating. (Sept.)