cocktails

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Book Nerd Party Drinks (Alaska edition #BookLush)

Those long, dark Alaskan winters create a glorious environment for fine reading and drinking. Not so long ago, I was lucky enough to be invited up to Alaska by Book Lush supporter Mainon Schwartz. At a fabulous party Mainon hosted for the Anchorage Library Foundation and the Wine, Women Words book club, I was tasked with matching drinks to selected books. It's hard work, but some book nerd has to do it. They picked the books, I made the drinks.

I really like people that offer up children's books for me to match with cocktails. These are my people. We even matched a drink with a Nancy Drew book - fabulous! Click the image on the right to download the full cocktail menu as a PDF, or feel free to scroll down to see the individual cocktail recipe cards.


A few specialty item's were pulled from Mainon's impressive stash of quality booze. I took some snaps of the ingredients you might not have on hand. Click the pictures to buy them online. To get the books, click on the individual recipe cards.

 

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First Batch of Book and Cocktail Pairings for #Booklush

Here's my first batch of book and cocktail pairings from Book Lush backers. Quite a diverse group! Please feel free to share these as you wish. Of course, if you want your own book and cocktail pairing, become a Book Lush backer on Kickstarter! XO, Kelsye

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Do you want to pick a book for me to match to a cocktail? Just become a Book Lush backer and all your book and cocktail pairing dreams can come true!

Book Lush is the definitive guide of what to read with what to drink. Book Lush pairs great reads with a drink perfectly matched to the tone, style, period and meaning of the writing. Each section contains an excerpt of a book selection, a brief biography of the author, the relevance of the piece, a description of the writing style and the author's place in modern literature, plus a paired drink recipe. Drink recipes are crafted by bartenders from some of the most interesting drinking venues around the world, with the book selection serving as inspiration.

If Nancy Pearl (Book Lust) and Don Draper (Mad Men) had a baby, and by baby I mean book, that baby would be Book Lush.

Book Lushes Converge on Liberty on Capitol Hill

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>> Click here to RSVP. <<

This is the second Book Lush meetup. We had such a great time at the first one, we decided to open it up and invite everyone! The live events offer a stimulating evening of good book recommendations and excellent craft cocktails. Bring a book idea for the bartender to match with a drink.

Plus, we're going during Liberty's happy hour. Bonus!

About Liberty Bar

Opened in 2006, we are constantly striving to provide our neighborhood with a great place to stop by, relax and enjoy outstanding spirits, cocktails, beer, wine and sushi.

Our primary interest at Liberty is our expansive liquor menu and our scratch cocktails – meaning that each and every cocktail is made with fresh juice when you order it, not from juice pressed earlier in the day or simply poured from a can. There’s no comparison between a scratch drink and any other – and you should expect no less.

Please feel free to ask your bartender or server to assist you in choosing a liquor that you may never have tried. At any time we have over 85 Bourbons and Ryes, 100+ Scotch, Japanese, Indian, Irish and Canadian Whiskies, and a premium selection of 40+Gins, dozens of Vodkas, 50+ Tequilas and 20′ish fine Mezcals in addition to quality liquors, some made here which we use to create our classic and original cocktails.

See all the details and RSVP here.

Or, if you're into Facebook, we do that too.

Want to share the event? Here's a tweet you can copy and paste:

Lucky folks in #Seattle can join #BookLush 3/18 at Liberty (@libertylovesyou) for cocktails matched to books! http://ow.ly/upfi5

XO and thanks again and again for your support! Kelsye

All or Nothing: A First Time

Just a couple days ago, I took the leap and launched my first ever Kickstarter campaign. I'm raising money to publish Book Lush, a guide of what to drink with what to read.

The inspiration:

A while back during my Japan years, I was sitting alone on my apartment balcony, reading a copy of Haruki Murakami's The Wind Up Bird Chronicle. It was late, but warm. I had Miles Davis Kind of Blue on the CD player and was drinking Cutty Sark (a whiskey) on the rocks. A perfect moment. Imagine my shock when I read as the character Toru played a record of Kind of Blue and poured himself a glass of Cutty Sark. After a moderate freak-out over the coincidence, I greatly enjoyed the blending of the drink and the book. As it was the character's drink, I was able to enter the author's world even deeper and experience the book in a multi-sensory way. Groovy, yes?
After that moment with the whiskey and the Murakami, I began to look for drink references, or even wonder what is the best drink to match with each of my favorite books. My writing friends shared their favorite pairings as well. Sometimes the match was pulled from a direct literary reference, sometime the match was made more on mood and general meaning. All these great conversations let to the Book Lush book idea.

There must be a perfect drink to pair with every great book.

 

Why Kickstarter?

I thought long and hard about how I wanted to bring Book Lush into the world. I have attended incredible workshops by Jen and Kerry at Business of Books that gave me the information and confidence I need to pitch to publishers. However, I have never attempted crowd-funding and I believe Book Lush is a good choice for the medium. I have many more ideas I can send to publishers later down the road. As I made my career in publishing, this is a great opportunity to learn more about this particular path.

I also took a long hard look at Pubslush. I am a huge fan of the Pubslush team and the platform they have created for authors to fund their book projects. In fact, my company Writer.ly recently started a Pubslush community page.

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I finally decided to go with Kickstarter as I was looking for more organic traffic and campaign templates I could easily follow.

 

Oh dear Lord, it's live.

After much clever procrastination and delay, I finally launched my kickstarter. A couple days in I have 16 backers and $660 pledged. I have a long way to go to meet my $8,000 pledge minimum. I'll keep you updated as I go with my experience and what I learn along the way. If you would like to join the Book Lush kickstarter, you can become a backer. Of course, shares and encouragement are also very much appreciated!

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