Drinking French

December 16, 2019
Lebovitz (My Paris Kitchen), a former Chez Panisse pastry chef, measures his passion for Paris in fluid ounces in this immersive look at France’s most beloved beverages. The first section explores café culture with classic coffee recipes, as well as hot chocolate enlivened by Armagnac marshmallows. The heart of the collection is its extensive chapter of aperitifs, some less known to American palates than others. Byrrh, for instance, a quinine and Spanish wine eye-opener, can be sipped over ice or stirred into a cocktail such as la découverte, made with rye and a dash of bitters. A fun and inviting section on homemade liqueurs and infusions features the Liqueur 44, a brandy-fueled concoction traditionally assembled with 44 coffee beans and 44 sugar cubes. Meanwhile, there are 43 cocktails in a chapter that shows off the author’s penchant for reinvention—for example, Lillet is added to a margarita and rosemary syrup to a gimlet. The final chapter serves up a variety of bar snacks, such as champagne truffles, which are dosed with Cognanc rather than bubbly. Francophiles and spirit lovers alike will find much joie de vivre amid these tempting pages.

January 24, 2020

Parisian café life as understood from movies and books has a certain refined and potentially inaccessible air. Dubonnet, suze, pineau de charentes: does one drink these, and if so, how and when? Chef Lebovitz (My Paris Kitchen) a Paris transplant from Berkeley, CA, demystifies café culture for non-French readers. Here a wealth of cocktail recipes require little more effort than locating a bottle of a specific spirit or two. For those familiar with cocktails popular in the United States, this will be an exciting find, as Lebovitz gently pokes fun at his experiences in France and adds recipes for light bites that will be welcomed by anyone seeking a twist on their favorite aperitifs.

VERDICT A recommended collection that makes accessible the sophistication of French café drinking to cocktail-crazed American audiences.--Peter Hepburn, Coll. of the Canyons Lib., Santa Clarita, CA

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2020
Lebovitz has already unmasked French cooking in My Paris Kitchen: Recipes and Stories (2014) and French real estate in L'Appart (2017). Now he turns his attention to Paris' numberless bars and restaurants with this comprehensive cocktail guide. The French enjoy an aperitif before meals or as a social afternoon break with some nibbles. Although many of these libations are based on liquors quite familiar to Americans, there are a host of specially crafted liqueurs and aperitifs that crowd the shelves behind French bars. Lillet and Dubonnet are sipped straight, but others are powerfully bitter and best used to add astringent notes to mixed drinks. Lebovitz is at his best presenting the histories and people behind many brand-name drinks, from Pernod and Ricard through Noilly Prat vermouth. Want to make your own elderflower liqueur? Lebovitz gives careful instructions. He concludes with some bar-snack recipes as simple as deviled eggs and more complex, sophisticated duck rillettes. This book brims with plenty of inspirations for a decidedly elegant, seriously Francophile home cocktail party.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)