York Gin

“Dive into the history and culture of juniper spirits in this fun and informative book . . . a must-read for marketers and gin lovers alike.” —The Spirits Business Gin is a global alcoholic drink that has polarised opinion like no other, and its history has been a roller coaster, alternating between being immensely popular and utterly unfashionable. The Weird and Wonderful Story of Gin explores the exciting, interesting, and downright curious aspects of the drink, with crime, murder, poisons, fires, dramatic accidents, artists, legends, and disasters all playing a part. These dark themes are also frequently used to promote brands and drinks. Did you know that the Filipinos are the world’s biggest gin drinkers? And even that Jack the Ripper, Al Capone, and the Krays all have their place in the history of gin? Not to mention Sir Winston Churchill, Noel Coward, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and James Bond! “Gin was the original Dutch courage and mothers’ ruin and there is drama, disaster, crime and royal patronage in its story as its fortunes lurch from being hugely popular to deeply unfashionable—and back again.” —Great British Life

The York Gin Little Book of Jokes, Puns and Quotes. Including recipes for Classic Gin Cocktails. A small book to entertain with the best jokes and puns about the wonderful drink that is gin.

The ultimate visual guide for all things gin, from botanicals and styles to producers, distillation processes, and tastings. Become a gin expert and discover your own gin tasting experience. A relatively loose definition of gin has allowed for a boom in specialist gin distilleries and an ever-broadening range of floral, citrus, herbal, spiced, fruity, and umami gins. Originally sought after for its host of medicinal properties, curing (almost) everything from the pestilence to malaria, gin has seen many peaks in its popularity. But the spirit’s long history has at times been murky, its history firmly rooted in and tied to Empire, a slide into being known as “mother’s ruin”, and a large part to play in the rise of abstinence movements. It has not always been the carefree spirit we know today. Join award-winning drinks writer Anthony Gladman as he explores the story of gin, from ancient uses to its present-day renaissance, offers insight into the unique distillation processes, teaches you to establish and develop your own palate and write your own tasting notes, before guiding you through over 100 of the most exciting gins from across the world. Featuring a classic cocktail section and how to make an icon – the G&T – as well as the spirit’s impact on the climate and the ways the industry is changing as a result. This is an all-encompassing guide to the ongoing story of gin – its heritage and innovation – and a celebration of the multitude of complex flavors present in the spirit today.

An ambitious history of a California city that epitomizes the history of race relations in modern America. Although much has been written about the urban–rural divide in America, the city of Salinas, California, like so many other places in the state and nation whose economies are based on agriculture, is at once rural and urban. For generations, Salinas has been associated with migrant farmworkers from different racial and ethnic groups. This broad-ranging history of "the Salad Bowl of the World" tells a complex story of community-building in a multiracial, multiethnic city where diversity has been both a cornerstone of civic identity and, from the perspective of primarily white landowners and pragmatic agricultural industrialists, essential for maintaining the local workforce. Carol Lynn McKibben draws on extensive original research, including oral histories and never-before-seen archives of local business groups, tracing Salinas's ever-changing demographics and the challenges and triumphs of Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, and Mexican immigrants, as well as Depression-era Dust Bowl migrants and white ethnic Europeans. McKibben takes us from Salinas's nineteenth-century beginnings as the economic engine of California's Central Coast up through the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on communities of color today, especially farmworkers who already live on the margins. Throughout the century-plus of Salinas history that McKibben explores, she shows how the political and economic stability of Salinas rested on the ability of nonwhite minorities to achieve a measure of middle-class success and inclusion in the cultural life of the city, without overturning a system based in white supremacy. This timely book deepens our understanding of race relations, economic development, and the impact of changing demographics on regional politics in urban California and in the United States as a whole.