Porchlight Book Club | The Bartender’s Pantry: A Beverage Handbook for the Universal Bar

Join us as we celebrate the launch of The Bartender’s Pantry: A Beverage Handbook for the Universal Bar. Celebrated authors Jim Meehan, Bart Sasso, and Emma Janzen will be at Porchlight to celebrate with inspired drinks and live music.

About the Book

A professional guide that surveys and celebrates the culinary ingredients in mixed drinks, with more than 100 recipes from the world’s most creative bartenders and the James Beard Award–winning author of Meehan’s Bartender Manual.

The Bartender’s Pantry includes concise overviews of ten categories of ingredients—sugars, spices, dairy, grains and nuts, fruits, vegetables, flowers and herbs, coffee, tea, soda and mineral water, and ferments—that cover each subject’s modern history in drinks, popular production practices, artisan processing methods, and common distribution channels before suggesting sourcing and service insights from experts in each field. The primers grapple with the challenges producers, distributors, and consumers each face as the ingredient moves through the food chain and into the bartender’s pantry.

Each chapter features artfully illustrated recipes incorporating the featured ingredients that bring the reader into the kitchens of some of the world’s most revered bartenders, baristas, importers, and chefs. Their innovative takes on traditional recipes including horchata, matcha, Turkish coffee, sorrel, kvass, and ice cream are followed by full-page photos of over 50 cocktails that incorporate them including modern classics like the Gin Basil Smash, Penicillin, and Earl Grey MarTEAni.

Inspired by kitchen references like Deborah Madison’s Vegetable Literacy and Harold McGee’s Keys to Good Cooking, The Bartender’s Pantry is an indispensable handbook for hospitality professionals, curious cooks, and anyone interested in how novel and traditional global beverages are connected to international foodways and our wellbeing itself.

About the Authors

Jim Meehan’s career spans three decades from Madison, Wisconsin to New York City, to Portland, Oregon, where he writes and works with hospitality clients, spirits companies, and product partners through his consultancy Mixography Inc. Jim authored the Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Award- winning The PDT Cocktail Book and the James Beard Award-winning Meehan’s Bartender Manual.

Bart Sasso is a multidisciplinary creative whose agency, Sasso & Co, develops identity, branding, packaging, and commercial art for companies like Tip Top Cocktails, Schenker Beer Company, and many more. Sasso is also a partner and the creative director of Ticonderoga Club, a critically acclaimed, genre- defying tavern in Atlanta, Georgia.

Emma Janzen is an award-winning journalist and author who writes about spirits and cocktails for outlets including The New York Times, PUNCH, and The World’s 50 Best Bars, where she also serves as one of the Academy Chairs for the USA.