[.ca] Mr. Boston: Official Bartender's and Party Guide (ISBN 0764597329)

Living on Reputation:
The 65th hard-cover edition of Mr. Boston would not rate a grade of "C" in any journalism class that I could imagine. Time-Warner did not spend enough money in editing (and re-write) to catch that the Introduction still refers to the book as the 64th edition. All-in-all, Amazon should not offer such a piece of junk. One might say that well there may be silght errors, the book has everything. In fact, Time-Warner sub-titles the book as "Official Bartender's and Party Guide" and further offers the comment "A Best Seller Since 1935..." Well, your favorite cake may have all the ingredients - butter, flour, sugar, eggs, etc. but if the mix is not done properly and if the cake time/temperature is not correct, well... And, I can't say it contains all the ingredients. For one, there is no listing for a Vodka Martini. My bartenter acquantainces say this has been the most popular martini for several years. My suggestion is to stay away from Mr. Boston.

Out dated and way too many plugs for Mr. Bostonýs products:
While there is a good deal of great information contained within its pages the guide desperately needs to be modernized. It lacks many of the most popular shooters, and has very few recipes for flavored vodkas and rum. I would strongly suggest either the playboy's bartender guide or bartending for dummies over this guide. While there are some very nice full color pictures in the guide all of them are Actually adds for the Mr. Boston brand of spirits. Also some of the recipes call for the Mr. Boston brad name of a drink instead of the generic name of the alcohol this can be very confusing since Mr. Boston is not available in all areas

Covers the basics, but too many annoying product promos:
The guide seems to have all the basic drinks, techniques, and supplies covered. At the beginning of each section (whiskey, rum, vodka, etc), there's an overview that would be good except for the annoying product promos. In the end, there were so many plugs for Mr Boston spirits and other brands, I felt like Mr Boston should be paying me for reading all these no-so-subtle ads.

Close, but no hot toddy:
I've owned this book for years. It has most of the drinks about which I've ever been curious. But this morning it failed me -- I looked up "toddy" and "hot toddy," and found nothing. I'd think this would be such a common drink that it'd be in every book. So Mr. Boston's is a good reference, but not the compleat one.

A great resource:
I've been a bartender for 5 years, and Mr. Boston has always been my first pick when I forget the recipes for certain drinks. I'm not sure why the other reviewers have such a problem finding drink recipes - Hot Toddies, as one reviewer searched for, is listed under 'Hot Drinks' on page 204-207 of the 65th edition. As for another reviewer, a Vodka Martini is just a Gin Martini with vodka swapped for gin, so perhaps the folks at Mr. Boston thought you might be able to figure that one out? Yes, the book has a bit of outdated info when introducing each spirit, but the main point of the book is to have a solid reference for whatever drink someone may ask for, not to introduce the novice to the ABCs of alcohol. Drink recipes vary from coast to coast, but Mr. Boston is a great resource for the traditional and common recipes of many, many drinks. Keep in mind that this particular edition I'm reviewing doesn't have more modern drinks, like 'Monkey's Lunch' and the like. Perhaps the newer Platinum Edition is more up to date? In short, if you're looking for an introductory book to bartending, get Bartending for Dummies or something similar. If you want a great recipe book that you can use for reference when mixing drinks, Mr. Boston is highly recommended.