Spirited

A flavour-focused drinks recipe book with a feminist slant, Spirited opens up the 'boys' club' world of serious cocktails and features fifty drinks, both alcoholic and booze-free.Spirited brings together fifty well-crafted cocktail recipes, all fuelled by a cook's palate and a love of creative ingredients. Signe Johansen's recipes play with a wide range of flavours such as fresh, floral, herbal and spicy notes and encourage you to think like a cook not a bartender. With chapters on drambling (the joy of winter walks and whisky), creative and delicious drinks to serve at gatherings, warming nightcaps and non-alcoholic 'soothies' to calm an ailing spirit, there is a tipple here for every occasion. There is also a collection of recipes called Cupboard Cocktails – made from staple ingredients you may already have in your kitchen – and more ambitious weekend projects for gifts or special occasions.Spirited is a refreshing departure from earnest mixologists writing about the 'art of the cocktail' – books often written by men, for men. Instead, Signe opens the field for everyone and celebrates the convivial and social experience of healthy hedonism and raising a glass together. This is a warm and inclusive companion to the subject, packed with trade secrets, delicious recipes and fascinating insight into the world of drinks.

"A book that turns a chore into a pleasure . . . Johansen is never less than in tune with her reader." --Observer Food Monthly on Solo, "The aim is to take cocktails beyond the gentleman's club or the hen night, creating recipes to sit alongside mid week meals an evening in alone. This will keep you off the grimmest of the festive cliché booze, as well as enlightening you on smoothies and juices for all occasions and the very best in non alcoholic tipples too." --Grazia, "Uplifting, heart-warming, life-enriching. I wish I could have read this book years ago." --Nigel Slater on How to Hygge

Signe Johansen is a Norwegian cook and author of Solo: The Joy of Cooking for One, How to Hygge, Scandilicious and Scandilicious Baking. A longtime whisky enthusiast, she is the co-founder of 'Spirited Women', a project to get more women into whisky and other spirits. After graduating with a bachelor's degree in archaeology and anthropology from the University of Cambridge, she trained at Leiths School of Food and Wine in London, worked in several of the UK's top restaurants and went on to do her masters in the anthropology of food at SOAS Food Studies Centre at the University of London. She has appeared on Kirstie's Handmade Christmas, What's Cooking and Sunday Brunch. She lives in London.