book’s theme—that cooking need not be regarded as drudgery— is uplifting, but for a book about spices, the writing is surprisingly bland, even banal, as in this sentence on turmeric: “It is known to assist in helping anemia, cancer, diabetes, digestion, food poisoning, gall stones, indigestion, ibs, parasites, poor circulation, staph infections, and wounds” (p .166) . Likewise, Power tries to pack in too much information about a cuisine and the culture behind it into one slim volume . However, her summary chapter on the rudiments of Indian cooking could be a good resource for beginners . —V .Vijaysree, Boston Entering into this cavernous old warehouse room was like walking into a medieval spice bazaar, an alchemist’s laboratory, a temple of holy herbs . Stacks of chincona bark, pallets of bitter orange, vats of aloe and chamomile, and—to get a little biblical—myrrh . Frenet-Branca’s secret recipe (created in 1845) has more than forty ingredients in all, including Chinese rhubarb, orris root, cardamom, gentian, marjoram, mace, peppermint, and, of course, anise . I saw pallets and pallets of saffron, an ingredient so key to Fernet-Branca that the company reportedly controls 75 percent of the world’s saffron market . (p .104) Boozehound: On the Trail of the Rare, the Obscure, and the Overrated in Spirits Jason Wilson Berkeley, ca: Ten Speed Press, 2010 240 pp . $22 .99 (cloth) The development of more advanced methods of distilling alcohol served as a harbinger of the industrial revolution . As Jason Wilson tells us in Boozehound, the distillation of spirits initially allowed farmers to profit from ripe fruit at the end of the growing season that hadn’t been sold or eaten; today, spirits have grown into a $54 billion industry (p .4) . Wilson is the spirits writer for the Washington Post, an enviable job that allows him access to industry functions and distillers throughout the world . He has done due diligence, having apprenticed under the likes of F . Paul Pacult and David Wondrich . In this volume he shares his globetrotting experiences to various distilleries, where he tastes bitters, piscos, digestifs, appetizers, and mixed drinks . Lamenting the lack of a digestif culture in the United States, Jorg Rupf of St . George Spirits in Alameda, California, remarks, “As soon as coffee and dessert comes, so does the bill . In Europe, when you have your table, you have it for the whole night . An eau-de-vie is a wonderful culinary tradition” (p .145) . Wilson excoriates the hegemony of vodka in American mixology, with its flavorless, odorless, colorless nature; he reveals that, curiously, Jägermeister, a digestif favored by older people in Germany, is the trendy shot drink of American college students . Wilson visits the distillery of Hans Reisetbauer, the Austrian artisanal maker of some of the finest eau-de-vie in the world—he uses a fruit ratio of twenty-five pounds of pears or apples to make one liter of eau-de-vie (p .146) . These sorts of details exemplify the obsessive nature of the distillers in their quest for a superlative beverage . Wilson’s relentless search for flavor and his inclusion of several dozen recipes make Boozehound a worthy read . —Gregory Gould, Albuquerque, nm GaStroNomica w i Nter 2 012

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