Every great drink starts with a plant. Sake began with a grain of rice. Scotch emerged from barley. Gin was born from a conifer shrub when medieval physicians boiled juniper berries with wine to treat stomach pain. The Drunken Botanist uncovers the surprising botanical history and fascinating science and chemistry of over 150 plants, flowers, trees, and fruits (and even a few fungi).

Actor and wine expert Julian Curry has devised a unique audiobook guide to wine. The whole subject is introduced and explained how wine is made, the different grapes, the different blends, vintages, wine-growing areas and types. In an entertaining and informal style, he also teaches how to taste wine, and how to choose and store it.

The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History houses, amid its illustrious artifacts, two bottles of wine: a 1973 Stag's Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon and a 1973 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay. These are the wines that won at the now-famous Paris Tasting in 1976, where a panel of top French wine experts compared some of France's most famous wines with a new generation of California wines. Little did they know the wine industry would be completely transformed as a result....

Wine Simple is full of an unbeatable depth of knowledge, effusive encouragement, and, most important, strong opinions on wine so you can learn to form your own. Imbued with Aldo's insatiable passion and eagerness to teach others, Wine Simple is accessible, deeply educational, and lively and fun, both in voice and visuals. This essential guide begins with the fundamentals of wine in easy-to-absorb hits of information and pragmatic, everyday tips - key varietals and winemaking regions, how to taste, when to save and when to splurge, and how do a wine tasting at home.

In The Widow Clicquot, Tilar J. Mazzeo brings to life for the first time the fascinating woman behind the iconic yellow label: Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin. A young witness to the dramatic events of the French Revolution and a new widow during the chaotic years of the Napoleonic Wars, Barbe-Nicole defied convention by assuming---after her husband's death---the reins of the fledgling wine business they had nurtured.

"Wine is, above all, about pleasure. Those who make it ponderous make it dull.... If you keep an open mind and take each wine on its own terms, there is a world of magic to discover." So wrote the renowned wine expert Kermit Lynch in the introduction to Adventures on the Wine Route, his ultimate tour of France, especially its wine cellars. The "magic" of wine is Lynch's subject as he takes the listener on a singular journey through the Loire, Bordeaux, the Languedoc, Provence, northern and southern Rhone, and Burgundy.

Its history stretches back almost to the founding of the nation and includes many colorful characters, both well known and obscure, from the hatchet-wielding prohibitionist Carry Nation to George Garvin Brown, who in 1872 created Old Forester, the first bourbon to be sold only by the bottle.

This extraordinarily handy and exciting audiobook is full of practical and charming information on ways to revel in whisky. All whisky styles are explained, along with (just whisper it) blends. Along the way, a few myths are busted, including the idea that whisky has to be taken neat. In Whiskey Tasting, Gary Wines Cappiello explores flavor camps - a way to recognize a style of whisky - and moves directly to offer giant tasting notes of the important brands, demonstrating whisky's topnotch diversity.

Jim Harrison's legendary gourmandise is on full display in A Really Big Lunch. From the titular New Yorker piece about a French lunch that went to 37 courses to pieces from Brick, Playboy, Kermit Lynch's newsletter, and others; from the relationship between hunter and prey to the obscure language of wine reviews, A Really Big Lunch is shot through with Harrison's pointed aperçus and keen delight in the pleasures of the senses. And between the lines, the pieces give glimpses of Harrison's life.

Welcome to Beer School, brought to you by the heroes of YouTube sensation the Craft Beer Channel, a guide to everything you need to know about the wide and wonderful beers of the world. In Beer School, Jonny and Brad explain the intricacies of the finest artisan craft brews, including: ales, lagers, porters, stouts, IPSs, and bitters.

From battling oppression and famine in Ireland to overcoming poverty and discrimination in America, we Irish gained our fightin' moniker by standing up for our rights and earning the respect we deserve. Now, the amazing feats, astounding people and incredible facts in this fascinating book of Irish trivia will make you proudly say, “F*ck you, I'm Irish”.

A celebration of the language and culture of Italy, La Bella Lingua is the story of how a language shaped a nation, told against the backdrop of one woman's personal quest to speak fluent Italian. For anyone who has been to Italy, the fantasy of living the Italian life is powerfully seductive. But to truly become Italian, one must learn the language. This is how Dianne Hales began her journey. In La Bella Lingua, she brings the story of her decades-long experience with "the world's most loved and lovable language" together with explorations of Italy's history.

Since its publication in 1925, The Great Gatsby has become one of the world's best-loved books, delighting audiences across the world. Careless People tells the true story behind F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece, exploring in newly rich detail the relation of Fitzgerald's classic to the chaotic world he in which he lived. Fitzgerald set his novel in 1922, and Careless People carefully reconstructs the crucial months during which Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald returned to New York in the autumn of 1922.

In the Technicolor glow of the early 70s, Jessica B. Harris debated, celebrated, and danced her way from the jazz clubs of the Manhattan's West Side to the restaurants of the Village, living out her buoyant youth alongside the great minds of the day - luminaries like Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison. My Soul Looks Back is her paean to that fascinating social circle and the depth of their shared commitment to activism, intellectual engagement, and each other.

For two months every year, from 1946 to his death 18 years later, Ian Fleming lived at Goldeneye, the house he built on a point of high land overlooking a small white-sand beach on Jamaica's stunning north coast. All the James Bond novels and stories were written there. This audiobook explores the huge influence of Jamaica on the creation of Fleming's iconic postwar hero. The island was for Fleming part retreat from the world, part tangible representation of his values, and part exotic fantasy.