Book Club
/Happy Thanksgiving!
We love book club. In fact, for us it is mostly a wine drinking social club where we not only talk about the book, but we also use the time to catch up with our friends. When it's our turn to select the book, we pick from one of the myriad of books about wine that are on the shelves today. In the Book Club feature, we will share some of our favorite wine based books that we have read here at Qorkz, and we hope you enjoy them as well.
Proof: The Science of Booze
Humans have been perfecting alcohol production for ten thousand years, but scientists are just starting to distill the chemical reactions behind the perfect buzz. In a spirited tour across continents and cultures, Adam Rogers takes us from bourbon country to the world’s top gene-sequencing labs, introducing us to the bars, barflies, and evolving science at the heart of boozy technology. He chases the physics, biology, chemistry, and metallurgy that produce alcohol, and the psychology and neurobiology that make us want it. If you’ve ever wondered how your drink arrived in your glass, or what it will do to you, Proof makes an unparalleled drinking companion.
Favorite Quote
“If, when you say whiskey, you mean the devil’s brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster that defiles innocence, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean the evil drink that topples the Christian man and woman from the pinnacles of righteous, gracious living into the bottomless pit of degredation and despair, shame and helplessness and hopelessness, then certainly I am against it with all my power.
But if, when you say whiskey, you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the stuff that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer; if you mean the stimulating drink that puts the spring in the old gentleman’s step on a frosty morning; if you mean the drink that enables a man to magnify his joy, and his happiness and to forget, if only for a little while, life’s great tragedies and heartbreaks and sorrows, if you mean that drink, the sale of which pours into our treasuries untold millions of dollars, which are used to provide tender care for our little children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitiful aged and infirm, to build highways, hospitals, and schools, then certainly I am in favor of it.”
Wine Pairing For This Book
Adam Rogers does an exceptional job of covering the history of booze from start to finish in what is one of my favorite books. What to pair with this story? Basically anything fermented would do, but I would look for a wine that comes from a place that may surprise you. A wine that is a challenge to produce both from a chemistry standpoint, but also a biological one. The Coruce Chardonnay $23.95 grows in a place with 115 degree days and 45 degree nights. Not only is that diurnal cycle a challenge, but it produces a Chardonnay that has delicious tropical fruit characteristics making it well worth all the effort.
