In the midst of the Cultural Revolution a Rebel Red Guard anonymously circulated an essay condemning the Chinese Party elite as a decadent, exploitative 'new red capitalist class'. The subversive yet truthful nature of the message stung the top Communist leadership in Beijing. Incredibly, the writer, Yang Xiguang, was only nineteen years old, a star high school pupil and the son of high-ranking Hunan officials. Denounced as a 'counterrevolutionary' by Chairman Mao himself, Yang was hunted down, arrested in 1968, and sentenced to ten years in prison. Captive Spirits is his remarkable story of life in the Chinese gulag during one of the most tumultuous periods of modern Chinese history.

Gin introduces the reader to the global artisan gin revolution, highlighting the spirit’s history and the ways that today’s craft drinks-makers have transformed the notion of what a gin can and should be. New Gins are hitting the market seemingly every day. This book will help the reader make sense of this rapid expansion, and contextualize them within gin’s illustrious history from the Renaissance apothecaries of Europe, to the streets of London, to the small local distilleries and cocktail bars of the United States, Canada, England, Spain, Australia and beyond. This is the first book to take a closer look at the emerging new categories of gin and to place it within context alongside the old guard. It includes profiles of key players in the distilling world and hundreds of ideas for how to drink gin – as a cocktail, in a classic gin & tonic or neat, as an aperitif or a liqueur.