160 page hardback book with cocktail recipes from the James Beard award winning Atomic Lounge in Birmingham, Alabama.

“[Bartels] takes us on a fascinating bar crawl across the country, explaining the history of America’s cocktail and drinking culture along the way.” —Wylie Dufresne, chef and owner of Du’s Donuts The United States of Cocktails is a celebration of the cocktail history of every state in America. After traveling this great nation and sampling many of the drinks on offer, cocktail authority Brian Bartels serves up a book that is equal parts recipe collection, travelogue, historical miscellany, bartender’s manual, and guide to bar culture today—with bar and drink recommendations that are sure to come in handy whether or not you are crossing state lines. Delving into the colorful stories behind the creation of drinks we love, this book includes more than 100 recipes alongside spirited analysis of each state’s unique contributions to cocktail culture. Filled with colorful illustrations, The United States of Cocktails is an opinionated and distinctively designed love letter to the spirits, bars, and people who have created and consumed the iconic drinks that inspire us and satisfy our thirst. “You could hardly ask for a more personable guide than Brian Bartels. He knows the oldest bars, the coolest bars, the can’t-miss bars and the oddest local quaffs in all 50 states, so you’ll never make the mistake of ordering a Whiskey Ditch in Louisiana or search for Allen’s Coffee Flavored Brandy on an Arizona back bar.” —Robert Simonson, author of The Old-Fashioned “Brian Bartels is a spirits traveler extraordinaire and this informative, highly-entertaining book is my new go-to guide for the most social of vices—drinkin’.” —Greg Mottola, director of Superbad, Adventureland, and The Newsroom

Traces the story of The Peppermint Lounge, the influential 1960s Manhattan nightspot and mobster hangout, detailing how the club's introduction of rock-and-roll music attracted rebel youths and celebrity patrons.

This is the story of the young women of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, who unwittingly played a crucial role in one of the most significant moments in U.S. history. The Tennessee town of Oak Ridge was created from scratch in 1942. One of the Manhattan Project's secret cities. All knew something big was happening at Oak Ridge, but few could piece together the true nature of their work until the bomb "Little Boy" was dropped over Hiroshima, Japan, and the secret was out. The reverberations from their work there, work they did not fully understand at the time, are still being felt today.

Recipes for more than one thousand mixed drinks are supplemented by sections on bar lore, hosting tips, and party drinking

Buried for decades, the Up Stairs Lounge tragedy has only recently emerged as a catalyzing event of the gay liberation movement. In revelatory detail, Robert W. Fieseler chronicles the tragic event that claimed the lives of thirty-one men and one woman on June 24, 1973, at a New Orleans bar, the largest mass murder of gays until 2016. Relying on unprecedented access to survivors and archives, Fieseler creates an indelible portrait of a closeted, blue- collar gay world that flourished before an arsonist ignited an inferno that destroyed an entire community. The aftermath was no less traumatic—families ashamed to claim loved ones, the Catholic Church refusing proper burial rights, the city impervious to the survivors’ needs—revealing a world of toxic prejudice that thrived well past Stonewall. Yet the impassioned activism that followed proved essential to the emergence of a fledgling gay movement. Tinderbox restores honor to a forgotten generation of civil-rights martyrs.