"Booze Cruise" is a globetrotting adventure into the world (literally) of craft cocktails.
It was André Darlington’s good fortune to have done his travel for his latest cocktail book, Booze Cruise (Running Press), a global tour of some of the world’s most fascinating drinks, right before the COVID-19 shutdown. A complex schedule that took him from Philadelphia to Berlin and ultimately to Asia landed him back home in late January 2020, “just as it became clear something serious was going on,” says Darlington in a phone interview.
Darlington, who once wrote regularly for Isthmus on food, wine and cocktails, now calls Philadelphia home. He is the co-author of three previous books: Booze & Vinyl, which pairs classic cocktails with classic records; Movie Night Menus, which matches drinks and dinner with the right movies; and The New Cocktail Hour, a history of cocktails in America with a focus on quality ingredients. These he co-wrote and co-researched with his sister, Tenaya (a former Isthmus editor). Booze Cruise was his first solo venture.
“This book was the biggest in scope, and no Tenaya,” says Darlington. He wondered if he could do it, but he had the experience of writing the previous books, which helped. During COVID, he drew on a world panel of bartender-ambassadors who were no farther away than an email or DM.
“I wanted it to be like a travelogue, and I wanted it to be up-to-date,” says Darlington. Even for Paris — the location in the book that he’s visited more than any other — he updated through online chats with bartenders on the ground in the City of Light.
Despite its combination of onsite and virtual research, the book feels immediate, thanks to Darlington’s vivid descriptions. Warning: The text and photos (most shot by Jason Varney) may increase wanderlust among those who have been sticking close to home for over a year.
André Darlington
Darlington seems to have rooted out the most insider haunts in the book's 42 cities, themselves often uncommon destinations for Americans. In Berlin he visits late night Spätis, sort of a convenience store/tavern hybrid, which he describes as “rest stops on the Autobahn of excess.” In Budapest, it’s all happening in “ruin bars” in the city’s old Jewish quarter, where cocktails are served in decaying buildings or even empty lots. In Santiago, Chile, it’s picadas, old-school restaurants that serve inexpensive snacks and drinks.
And each city’s special liquors seem more intriguing than the last. In Berlin, there’s the caraway-flavored liqueur Kümmel; in Budapest, the stone fruit brandy Pálinka, and in Santiago, not only the inevitable pisco but also jote, red wine mixed with Coca-Cola.
One of Darlington’s favorite discoveries was Kyiv, Ukraine, which he found a very walkable city with a speakeasy bar craft cocktail scene. Drinks are made with a number of less-than-familiar ingredients, from ryazhenka (fermented milk) to a moonshine hot chili pepper version of a grain distillate usually made with dried fruit and herbs but also maybe nuts or milk. That’s pertsivka. “A city like Kyiv that most Americans don’t think of has an incredible cocktail scene,” Darlington says. “Kind of in the way that most Americans wouldn’t imagine that Madison has a top cocktail scene, but it really does.”
Asia’s craft cocktail game is on the rise, reports Darlington, with a large youthful population that has great enthusiasm. “It’s advanced quickly. I don’t think there was much of a cocktail scene in Singapore even five years ago.”
Darlington is just as fascinated by the atmospheres in world cocktail bars, especially in Tokyo, Seoul and Hong Kong. “The space is a new kind of space; there are drinks that are incredible showstoppers. They are expensive, but it’s like a cocktail experience. The thing literally arrives in a mini treasure chest and there’s something that looks like a pearl and smoke comes out. It’s really cinematic.”
Despite the allure of many distant destinations, Darlington thinks the pandemic encouraged people to make better, more ambitious craft cocktails at home and that will continue as people start having their friends over again.
In this book, Darlington did create or recreate some of the cocktail recipes himself. “I’ve always considered myself a journalist first, but this was the first time when I had to come up with the recipes, because the drinks weren’t repeatable,” usually because of high-tech equipment. “I’ve become a better cocktail recipe writer, and faster,” Darlington says, though he does have a bartender help him test all the recipes. There are also some recipes for characteristic dishes to accompany the cocktails, like Budapest’s revered chicken paprikash and Tokyo’s simple sweet and spicy edamame.
Darlington also wrote Gotham City Cocktails more or less at the same time as Booze Cruise. Published by DC Comics, that book consists of recipes for 70 drinks inspired by Gotham City and DC’s comic book heroes.
Darlington will be in Madison next week — in part to visit his mom, whom he hasn’t seen in person since before the pandemic — and will be signing copies of his books at Maduro, 117 E. Main St., on June 30 from 6-9 p.m. There will be charcuterie and punch, and DJ Nick Nice will be spinning tunes.
“It’s funny, as we head into summer, I realize so many of the places included, so many cities around the globe, are warmer climates,” Darlington says. “It really has turned into a summer entertaining book, where people can have friends over and say ‘Let’s go to Bangkok,’ and that’s been really fun.”
Some Berlin cocktails feature the caraway-flavored liqueur Kümmel.
