Last week, I was catching up on the cocktail blogs–specifically, I was reading one of my new favorites, Cocktailnerd. Gabriel, the author, wrote up a cool piece on the Blinker. Now, the Blinker’s a drink to try some time, but I’ll have to be careful, because it calls for grapefruit juice, to which Lady Bitters is sadly allergic. (I’ll just fix her a Negroni; that covers a number of sins.)

More to the point, though, Gabriel linked out to an interview with Ted Haigh at Modern Drunkard Magazine. I have hazy memories of having read this interview previously, but I’ve had too many Sazeracs to be sure.

In the interview, Haigh and his interlocutor, Frank Kelly Rich, discuss Haigh’s meeting with a Mrs. Walton Smith. It’s a delightful exchange between Rich and Haigh, and I won’t quote it here so as to urge you to read the whole interview. But Mrs. Smith’s husband happened to have been the coauthor of a book called Liquor: The Servant of Man. I became intrigued and ran a Google search for that book.

I immediately found a copy for sale on eBay and snapped it up. (Perhaps I’m unwise in using my real name as my eBay ID, but I’m just a transparent kinda guy.)

I’ll read it and report back with a review.