The Mezcal Crack Up

Perpetual scam artists Glen and Stan find themselves with a million-dollar stake after their last exploit. Of course, this money must be invested to provide for their future. Why? Because the boys must now go straight. Their notoriety from previous adventures now makes it impossible for them to continue as scammers. The trouble is, they can’t agree on an investment. Stan impulsively dumps his half of the money into Elysian Pavilion, a drug-and-alcohol rehab house. He wants Glen to do the same, but Glen wants to open a trendy mezcal bar. An impassable roadblock looms before Glen in the form of the state’s chief liquor distributor, Oskar Stoltz, and his scary flunky, Doug McClatchy. Stoltz hates mezcal and won’t carry it. Glen’s plan seems permanently stymied . . . until he meets three vital people: Trevor Yorn, young rich trustafarian with a handy venue to host parties. Araceli Zavala, a young Mexican-American woman with mythic resonance. And Fulgencio Pérez, Araceli’s visiting uncle from Mexico, who happens to be a maestro mezcalero, distiller supreme. All the pieces fall into place for a boutique mezcal distillery and a weekly rave, by which Glen will fulfill his dreams and get rich. But the enmity of Stoltz and McClatchy has not abated. Danger, death, and destruction lie in the shadows—leading inexorably toward a final, apocalyptic confrontation! PRAISE FOR THE GLEN AND STAN CAPERS “Paul Di Filippo expertly spins a tale of revenge, betrayal, and a fight for salvation.” —Brendan Dubois “[This] cocktail of classic noir blends a cast of sexy and larcenous guys and molls, a wittily suspenseful buildup, and a gasp-provoking payoff.” —Michael Bishop

A masterful, witty, picaresque science fiction adventure story evoking the styles of Gene Wolfe and Jack Vance, The Summer Thieves is the first novel in the new Quinary series by noted author and reviewer Paul Di Filippo. He chased his dreams of the ideal summer across a galaxy of thieves . . . Far in the glorious interstellar future, a time of riches and complex technologies, the stern but utilitarian Quinary guards and regulates the flourishing human-colonized galaxy. Under their business-like rule, a family may own a whole planet. And so two bloodlines—the Corvivios clan and the Soldavere clan—are in full possession of the lush and benign world of Verano. The youngest members of each family—Johrun Corvivios and Minka Soldavere—are slated to wed. All looks rosy for the joint family enterprises. But then the happy future is dramatically and tragically overturned! Circumstances separate the lovers and rob them of their places in the galaxy, and Johrun must undertake a desperate quest across the stars to reclaim his birthright. At first aided only by his devoted chimeric helper, the canny Lutramella, Johrun will face a thousand deadly challenges, from malign magicians to haughty outlaws. As his character is matured in fire, his dedication to Verano and his determination to return increase, and his group of friends and allies becomes stronger . . . but will the precious Summer Planet, and his bride-to-be, even be the same when—and if—he returns?

Paul Di Filippo delivers a thrilling and thought provoking adventure through the multiverse in Vangie’s Ghosts, a compelling science fiction novel about one girl with extraordinary powers. Three-year-old Vangie is mute and unresponsive. She shows no interest in the people or world around her, much to the frustration of her callous foster parents. Little do they know, Vangie is otherwise occupied observing “ghosts”—an infinite number of versions of herself, in an infinite number of parallel universes. When a tornado hits their trailer and Vangie is severely injured, she makes a desperate leap into another timeline where she survives the tornado, but her foster parents do not. So begins a life of shuttling through various foster homes, cultivating her abilities to seek out alternate timelines, and making jumps calculated to better her circumstances in order to avoid the exploitation of adults who seek to harness her powers for their own means. Vangie never communicates with her avatars, until one day the “Council”—a group of Vangies—appear to her and warn her of an ominous, growing threat in the multiverse: a man they call the Massive. And thus begins an epic conflict, spanning millennia and worlds, in a brutal effort to control the fate of the multiverse. Vangie’s Ghosts is Paul Di Filippo at the height of his imagination and versatility, filled with compelling characters who play captivating roles in a story where the stakes are nothing less than existence itself.

‘Before mezcal I knew tequila. We danced together and had a good time. Then I found mezcal and we not only danced but we talked and talked. As a lover of whisky, mezcal was an easy step for me. And Tom is the person to tell you all about it.’ Thomasina Miers, author and chef-owner of Wahaca restaurant chain ‘Thomas, aside from having one of the early great beards of NYC, played some of the finest music ever to crawl into my drunken ears. He retains the same intimidating and generous approach to mezcal: know everything worth knowing about a subject, avoid the garbage, love it, and share.’ James Murphy, LCD Soundsystem ‘Before mezcal I knew tequila. We danced together and had a good time. Then I found mezcal and we not only danced but we talked and talked. As a lover of whisky, mezcal was an easy step for me. And Tom is the person to tell you all about it.’ Thomasina Miers, author and chef-owner of Wahaca restaurant chain ‘Thomas, aside from having one of the early great beards of NYC, played some of the finest music ever to crawl into my drunken ears. He retains the same intimidating and generous approach to mezcal: know everything worth knowing about a subject, avoid the garbage, love it, and share.’ James Murphy, LCD Soundsystem The definitive guide to Mexico's best kept secret; Mezcal. Unlike its infamous offspring tequila, until recently you would have had to take a trip to Mexico to try this intriguing spirit. But with ‘Mezcalerias’ popping up everywhere from New York City to London, Tokyo and beyond, and mezcal increasingly seen on the menus of the most discerning and hippest bars, the agave plant-based alcohol is the cool new drink taking the world by storm. Embark on a regional tour of Mexico and discover local mezcal gems in this illustrated guide to the best 'mezcalerias' (mezcal bars) in the world, then work your way through more than 30 cocktail recipes from the world’s best mezcal bartenders. From backyard heroes to big names, this is a comprehensive guide fwith over 100 varieties of mezcal, complete with a tasting wheel to help explain the subtleties of this intriguing drink and make you a connoisseur in no time.

"A rich, inclusive portrait of one of the world's great drinks." —Kirkus Reviews Mezcal. In recent years, the oldest spirit in the Americas has been reinvented as a pricy positional good popular among booze connoisseurs and the mixologists who use it as a cocktail ingredient. Unlike most high–end distillates, most small–batch mezcal is typically produced by and for subsistence farming communities, often under challenging conditions. As Granville Greene spends time with maestros mezcaleros, who distill their drinks using local agaves and production techniques honed through generations, mezcal becomes a spirit of contradictions—both a liquid language celebrating village identity and craftsmanship, and a luxury export undergoing a gold–rush–style surge. The Mezcal Rush explores the complications that can arise when an artisanal product makes its way across borders.

In this groundbreaking and deeply personal book, Ron Cooper—a leading voice in the artisanal mezcal movement, and the person largely responsible for popularizing the spirit in the United States—shares everything he knows about this storied, culturally rich, and now hugely in-demand spirit, along with 40 recipes. In 1990, artist Ron Cooper was collaborating with craftspeople in Oaxaca, Mexico, when he found mezcal—or, as he likes to say, mezcal found him. This traditional spirit was virtually unknown in the United States at the time, and Cooper founded Del Maguey Single Village Mezcal in order to import it. Finding Mezcal recounts Cooper's love affair with the spirit and the people who make it; its meteoric rise in popularity; and the delicate balance between sharing mezcal with the world and facilitating its preservation. Each chapter introduces a new mezcal, its producer, and its place of origin, while also covering mezcal production methods and the botany of the maguey (aka agave) plant, from which mezcal is distilled. Featuring 40 recipes developed for Del Maguey by chefs and bartenders from around the world, the book is copiously illustrated with photographs, as well as Cooper's artwork and that of his friend Ken Price, who illustrated Del Maguey's now-iconic labels.

The acclaimed author “excavates his own tormented life—and its relation to the land he loves—in a series of powerful, imagistic autobiographical essays” (Kirkus Reviews). “Romping drunkenly into Mexico, protesting the Vietnamese war at the University of Wisconsin, marching on the capitol in Washington, hiking into the Pinacate, returning to the family farm in Germantown, Iowa. These and other scenes flash before the reader in Charles Bowden’s Mezcal, the final piece of his Southwest trilogy . . . Although the book is ostensibly autobiographical, Bowden’s overriding concern is with trying to make sense of the Sunbelt Phenomena.” —Dick Kirkpatrick, Western American Literature “In Mezcal . . . Bowden drops the journalistic veil, exploring the ecology of his interior landscape at least as thoroughly as the changing scenery that surrounds him . . . Others—Aldo Leopold, Edward Abbey—have already staked inviolate claims on the Southwestern deserts. But Bowden owns the complex terrain where, like a mezcal-inspired mirage, the Sonoran sun-belt overlaps the gray convolutions of the American mind.” —Los Angeles Times “Mezcal is also a lyrical meditation upon the ultimate strength of the land, specifically the desert Southwest, and how that land prevails and endures despite every effort of modern industry and development to rape and savage it in the name of progress. Mezcal lingers in the mind as only the very best books manage to do.” —Harry Crews, author of A Feast of Snakes

IACP AWARD WINNER • Indulge your thirst for new ways to enjoy tequila and mezcal with 60+ recipes for agave cocktails from a James Beard Award–nominated author and New York Times spirits writer. From riffs on classics such as the Mezcal Mule and Oaxaca Old-Fashioned to new favorites such as Naked and Famous or Smoke and Ice, discover how to use mezcal and tequila to create cocktails in nearly every classic cocktail formula—from flip to sour to highball—that highlight the smoky, edgy flavors of these unique and popular spirits. Robert Simonson, author of The Old-Fashioned and The Martini Cocktail, covers a broad range of flavors with doable, delicious recipes that are easy to assemble, most only requiring three or four ingredients. This comprehensive, straightforward guide is perfect for tequila and mezcal enthusiasts looking for creative ways to enjoy agave spirits more often and in more varied ways—or for anyone who just likes to drink the stuff.