Drinking for Chaps: How to Choose One's Booze (Gustav Temple & Olly Smith)

'Hot on the heels of Cooking for Chaps, published in 2014, comes an authoritative and definitive guide to getting plastered. [As if I need one - Ed.]

Drinking for Chaps is a collaboration between Gustav Temple and esteemed drinks writer Olly Smith. Together they embarked on a magical journey to the heart of each and every type of alcoholic drink imaginable, from cocktails to cognac and everything in between, in order to set out precisely how Chaps should approach each of them. From which particular jacket to wear when sipping white wine, what to nibble with a glass of vodka, how to mix a dry martini, and, crucially, how to deal with an awful hangover, Drinking For Chaps shows true chaps the way to the bar.

 Packed with history, background, a bit of technical information (but not too much), mythology and portraits of legendary boozers such as Oliver Reed, Sir Kingsley Amis, Winston Churchill and Peter O’Toole, there is plenty to read in this tome aside from which bottle of cheap plonk to take to a dinner party (though that’s in there too).

Endorsed by none other than Sir Roger Moore: “Fascinating, especially as I pop up all over the pages!” and Guardian drinks writer Henry Jeffries, who declared: “Tackling such important issues as whether it’s ever acceptable to wear a fez while drinking cocktails, it’s best read when slightly drunk. I can offer no higher praise.”'