The Drunken Botanist, Amy Stewart
The Drunken Botanist, Amy Stewart
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The Drunken Botanist
The Plants That Create the World's Great Drinks

Author: Amy Stewart

Narrator: Coleen Marlo

Unabridged: 10 hr 17 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/19/2013


Synopsis

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).

Some of the most extraordinary and obscure plants have been fermented and distilled, and they each represent a unique cultural contribution to global drinking traditions and our history. Molasses was an essential ingredient of American independence when outrage over a mandate to buy British rather than French molasses for New World rum-making helped kindle the American Revolution. Captain James Cook harvested the young, green tips of spruce trees to make a vitamin C-rich beer that cured his crew of scurvy—a recipe that Jane Austen enjoyed so much that she used it as a plot point in Emma.

With over fifty drink recipes, growing tips for gardeners, and advice that carries Stewart’s trademark wit, this is the perfect listen for gardeners and cocktail aficionados alike.

Author Bio

Amy Stewart is the bestselling author of several books on the perils and pleasures of the natural world: From the Ground Up, The Earth Moved, Flower Confidential, and Wicked Plants. Her essays and commentaries have appeared on NPR, in the New York Times, and in Fine Gardening and other magazines. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship and the American Horticultural Society's 2010 Book Award. Amy lives in Eureka, California, where she and her husband own an antiquarian bookstore.

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