What do you think?
Rate this book
The Art of the Shim: Low-Alcohol Cocktails to Keep You Level
More drink. Less drunk.
You deserve a great cocktail—and you don't have to over-indulge to get it! Shims—serious, low-alcohol cocktails—are where everyone can come together, whether it’s for the one drink of the evening or when this is but the first of many.
This book is your invitation to a world of delicious, sophisticated drinks which provide all their pleasures without walloping you over the head with booze. Celebrate two centuries of the cocktail with 53 recipes for every taste, from the sunny cheerfulness of a Ben's Good Humor to slow sippers like the Bitter Giuseppe. Cheers!
Lavishly illustrated with 79 vibrant photos by Kelly Puleio.
You deserve a great cocktail—and you don't have to over-indulge to get it! Shims—serious, low-alcohol cocktails—are where everyone can come together, whether it’s for the one drink of the evening or when this is but the first of many.
This book is your invitation to a world of delicious, sophisticated drinks which provide all their pleasures without walloping you over the head with booze. Celebrate two centuries of the cocktail with 53 recipes for every taste, from the sunny cheerfulness of a Ben's Good Humor to slow sippers like the Bitter Giuseppe. Cheers!
Lavishly illustrated with 79 vibrant photos by Kelly Puleio.
192 pages, Hardcover
First published September 5, 2013
13 people are currently reading
328 people want to read
About the author
Dinah Sanders
3Ìýbooks21ÌýfollowersCurrently self-employed as a writer, I hold degrees in History and Library Science. I put these skills to work on cocktail history and taxonomy in The Art of the Shim: Low-Alcohol Cocktails to Keep You Level and on the Bibulo.us blog. My first book, Discardia: More Life, Less Stuff, explored letting go of what doesn't make life awesome.
Dinah's Projects
Bibulo.us
Bibulo.us brings my 'quality over quantity' philosophy to cocktails. The blog is co-authored with Joseph Gratz and covers recipes, ingredients, tools, resources, bars, people, and general essays on all matters relating to classic cocktails and fine service. You can follow Bibulous on Twitter. My second book, The Art of the Shim: Low-Alcohol Cocktails to Keep You Level, came out in hardcover and ebook formats in September 2013. It was nominated for the Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Award, the Oscar of the cocktail world, and named one of the 30 best cocktail books of all time by the internationally esteemed Diffords Guide.
Discardia
Discardia, a holiday I founded in 2002, is celebrated by carving away all that nonsense which isn't making us happy, and uncovering what does. It's about letting go of what doesn't add value to our lives - whether physical object, habit, or emotional baggage - and replacing it with what makes our worlds more true to our essential selves. Discardia.com brings together my online Discardian writings and comments from members of the growing Discardian community. You can follow Discardia on Twitter. My first book, Discardia: More Life, Less Stuff came out in fall of 2011 and has sold over 4000 copies around the world.
Sanders & Gratz
Through my publishing partnership with Joseph Gratz, I am involved in every stage of creating my books and bringing them to market in their various formats.
MetaGrrrl
MetaGrrrl.com is my personal site, where I have been blogging since 1998. It is a portrait of my life and what is on my mind at various times in it. I am gradually extending it backwards in time to fill in my pre-Web history, as well as integrating past online activity which took place on other sites.
Dinah's Projects
Bibulo.us
Bibulo.us brings my 'quality over quantity' philosophy to cocktails. The blog is co-authored with Joseph Gratz and covers recipes, ingredients, tools, resources, bars, people, and general essays on all matters relating to classic cocktails and fine service. You can follow Bibulous on Twitter. My second book, The Art of the Shim: Low-Alcohol Cocktails to Keep You Level, came out in hardcover and ebook formats in September 2013. It was nominated for the Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Award, the Oscar of the cocktail world, and named one of the 30 best cocktail books of all time by the internationally esteemed Diffords Guide.
Discardia
Discardia, a holiday I founded in 2002, is celebrated by carving away all that nonsense which isn't making us happy, and uncovering what does. It's about letting go of what doesn't add value to our lives - whether physical object, habit, or emotional baggage - and replacing it with what makes our worlds more true to our essential selves. Discardia.com brings together my online Discardian writings and comments from members of the growing Discardian community. You can follow Discardia on Twitter. My first book, Discardia: More Life, Less Stuff came out in fall of 2011 and has sold over 4000 copies around the world.
Sanders & Gratz
Through my publishing partnership with Joseph Gratz, I am involved in every stage of creating my books and bringing them to market in their various formats.
MetaGrrrl
MetaGrrrl.com is my personal site, where I have been blogging since 1998. It is a portrait of my life and what is on my mind at various times in it. I am gradually extending it backwards in time to fill in my pre-Web history, as well as integrating past online activity which took place on other sites.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 10, 2018
Low-alcohol cocktails have found a persuasive champion in Ms Sanders, and this book, which seems to be the 2013 culmination of five years of blogging on the subject, is an imperfect but nevertheless worthy addition to a bar library. Her focus on vermouth- and sherry- based cocktails with occasional nods towards shandies, flips, and bittered juices is on-point for our present culinary milieu, and the handful of recipes I've tried have been flavorful and balanced. With that said, its hard to ignore that a lot of the recipes only sneak under Ms Sanders's ½-ounce limit on hard spirits by reducing the overall volume to a few sips. Stirred cocktails usually include about 3 oz of liquid before dilution, and many of Ms Sanders's land between 1¾ and 2¼. Tiny cocktails are lovely things (being consumable while still at the perfect temperature), but a recipe that needs to be halved to count as "low-ABV" is of questionable relevance in this collection.
The structure and design of the book is also a mixed bag. The volume ends with a reasonably thoughtful taxonomy of drinks, but the main recipe section is merely alphabetized—an organization scheme which is hardly useful when so few of the drinks are classics of known name. A separate index of drinks by ingredients is a little iffy in its design, but that it exists at all is something that should be celebrated. Amateur typography—too-large type and too-small leading—gives text-heavy pages a composed-in-Word-97 flavor. Stranger yet: the decimal mark before quantities less than 1 (e.g. .75) is made extra bold. As weird as this is, it's made even more distracting by the lack of similar treatment of decimal marks in quantities greater than 1 (e.g. 1.5). Fortunately, the bad page design is partially mitigated by unusually informative full-page photographs of each drink. The lack of over-the-top glassware and depth-of-field camera trickery suggests confidence on the part of the photographer and drink stylist. Lift a glass to them!
The structure and design of the book is also a mixed bag. The volume ends with a reasonably thoughtful taxonomy of drinks, but the main recipe section is merely alphabetized—an organization scheme which is hardly useful when so few of the drinks are classics of known name. A separate index of drinks by ingredients is a little iffy in its design, but that it exists at all is something that should be celebrated. Amateur typography—too-large type and too-small leading—gives text-heavy pages a composed-in-Word-97 flavor. Stranger yet: the decimal mark before quantities less than 1 (e.g. .75) is made extra bold. As weird as this is, it's made even more distracting by the lack of similar treatment of decimal marks in quantities greater than 1 (e.g. 1.5). Fortunately, the bad page design is partially mitigated by unusually informative full-page photographs of each drink. The lack of over-the-top glassware and depth-of-field camera trickery suggests confidence on the part of the photographer and drink stylist. Lift a glass to them!
September 26, 2013
I love the concept behind this book. I loved the drink options, though I have to admit that I haven't actually tried to make my own yet.
I have never been a big drinker, but I do enjoy a good cocktail and this book delivers. I feel more confident about attending some networking functions now that I can sip and enjoy lightly.
I did win this book as part of a Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ giveaway, and it will be staying on my bookshelf for a long time to come.
I have never been a big drinker, but I do enjoy a good cocktail and this book delivers. I feel more confident about attending some networking functions now that I can sip and enjoy lightly.
I did win this book as part of a Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ giveaway, and it will be staying on my bookshelf for a long time to come.
September 25, 2013
Great book for learning cocktails! Makes me respect and really want to start making and sampling them. Gives great detail on how and why shims are a better drink choice then hard alcohol. I myself don't very much enjoy hard alcohol but love a nice relaxing evening with a nice cocktail. :) will be trying these out very soon thank you Dinah
Won this book on good reads.
Won this book on good reads.
December 11, 2013
My friends are all booze hounds; they shuffle up the stairs to my apartment asking for drink after drink after drink. Not all of them can utilize old fashions all night, for them I studied this book's shims.
August 16, 2018
A unique cocktail book, straight-forward recipes, gorgeous pictures, and very usefully, multiple indexes by mood, kind, ingredients, and era. Has a number of tasty recipes, although somewhat vermouth- and bitters-heavy. I do find many of the flavours a bit "flat" without the extra alcohol.
September 21, 2013
my mother stole this from me, she is enjoying it immensely though!
September 22, 2013
Fantastic. Gorgeous photos, easy to do recipes, and feels hand crafted with lots of quotes and commentary.
November 24, 2020
Absolutely fantastic!
Erik Lorincz, head bartender, American Bar, Savoy Hotel, London
Erik Lorincz, head bartender, American Bar, Savoy Hotel, London
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get help and learn more about the design.