The Cocktail
Subtitle: The Influence of Spirits on the American Psyche
Edition: 1st ed edition
Publisher: St Martins Pr
Published: November 1995
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 168
ISBN-13: 9780312134501
Subjects: Beverages - Wine & Spirits; Customs & Traditions; Popular Culture; Cooking / Wine; Cocktails; Drinking customs; History; Sears; United States; Sociology
Description: Combining history, subjective rumination, and a few nods to the occult, author Lanza exposes the cocktail as a ritual, a religious ceremony that sates the modern mind and soul. He shows how cocktails have impacted politics, movies, popular songs, architecture, circadian rhythms, social interactions, and yes, even the mythic power of such American patriarchs as George Washington and his contemporary incarnation Frank Sinatra.

In the mix are such cocktail culture personalities as Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Walter Winchell, Cole Porter, Elizabeth Taylor, Hugh Hefner, Truman Capote, the Rat Pack, James Bond, and others whose celebrity and intricate sense of "cool" have proven how much "cocktail time" promises Heaven on Earth.