Tequila Mockingbird Book Review

Travel Distilled reviews the literary cocktail recipe book Tequila Mockingbird by Tim Federle and finds the contents just as good as the great title.

Tequila Mockingbird has to be one of the greatest book titles of all time, if you enjoy both literature and a cocktail. Fortunately the contents live up to the promise of the title.

I laughed at the title of this book immediately, the first time I heard of it. I love tequila, and one of my favorite books of all time is To Kill a Mockingbird, so I’m going to be a fan. I’ve even been to Monroeville, where author Harper Lee lived, and my wife has written about our visit here.

I never read the book, though, but when we were staying at a hotel in Scotland, there was a copy in our room – along with a few dozen other books. I naturally picked it up and started browsing… and loved the author’s witty style, and his knowledge of both cocktails and literature. So, add to my love of literature and cocktails a love of good puns, and this is definitely the book for me.

**What Is Tequila Mockingbird?**

There are several sections in the book but it is mainly a collection of cocktail recipes, each with a literary pun in the title. There’s a bit about the book that inspired the pun, and then the cocktail recipe, and it’s a really enjoyable read. Oh, and it’s sold over half a million copies.

Tequila Mockingbird book review, sample page — A Sampler from the Book: Bar Equipment

**Who Wrote Tequila Mockingbird?**

The author, Tim Federle, sounds like the kind of versatile guy you’d really like to hang out with. He’s an actor, has written fiction… and we’ll be back right after the break…

…he has written movies, is clearly sickeningly talented, as well as being a cocktail enthusiast.

Great Titles

If you’re a reader then you’ll love plays on the titles of great books, like 100 Beers of Solitude, Love in the Time of Kahlua, Bridget Jones’s Daiquiri, and The Lime of the Ancient Mariner. Plus the title, of course. If none of those make you smile, better go find a different book review to read.

Cocktail Combinations

Another great title is The Postman Always Brings Ice. It’s a book (and film) I love, and the cocktail recipe is a simple combination of ouzo and cola. One of the main characters in the book is known as The Greek, and ouzo is a Greek drink (and one that I like a lot), but I’d never think of combining it with cola. This cocktail recipe makes me feel like I should, though.

Quibbles

The book isn’t perfect, but then what is? It says that 90% of the cocktail recipe ingredients are available at your local corner shop. Really? I’m not sure I’ve seen things like Galliano liqueur, absinthe, and peach schnapps at my local Walgreens, but then I live in a small town in Arizona, and maybe you live somewhere a little more sophisticated like New York. And to be fair, many of the cocktails are simple and mostly made from easy-to-find ingredients. The author’s certainly not a cocktail snob.

Drinking Games

The book has a section on drinking games, which I thought would be funny to see. Except they’re not real drinking games, just jokes, like ‘Chug your ale every time Dickens introduces a new character in Great Expectations.’