The Dead Rabbit Drinks Manual: Secret Recipes and Barroom Tales from Two Belfast Boys Who Conquered the Cocktail World

Muldoon, Jack McGarry, and Ben Schaffer's manual begins with the story of Muldoon's unlikely journey from pulling pints in rough Belfast pubs to the vanguard of the craft-cocktail renaissance. Along with McGarry, whom he met at his award-winning Merchant Hotel bar in Belfast, Muldoon crossed the ocean to open the Dead Rabbit in New York in 2013, with the bar named for the gang that once prowled the local lower Manhattan neighborhood. Despite the seriousness of the cocktail talent, both bar and book feel relaxed. Many familiar elements of modern cocktail books are here, from the photographs of drinks streaming from a frosty shaker to the notes on glassware and ingredients. But the glasses are a clue that this is no simple retread of the classics; alongside rocks, glasses, and coupes, the Dead Rabbit's shelves contain porcelain cups, punch bowls, and proper Irish coffee glasses (six ounces, tulip-shaped, no handle.) The drinks are historic with a twist , adventurous, and clearly described, and the chapters make a poetic list: "Fixes and Daisies," "Cups and Cobblers," "Juleps and Smashes," "Flips," "Possets," and "Nogs."