Cocktail visionaries Alex Day, David Kaplan and Nick Fauchald, along with contributor Devon Tarby, took the top prize of Book of the Year at the 2019 James Beard Foundation Media Awards for their book, Cocktail Codex. The second book by Day, Kaplan and Fauchald, Cocktail Codex is the follow-up to the best-selling Death & Co: Modern Classic Cocktails.
The book, which came out this past October and has a suggested retail price of $40, is written for cocktail enthusiasts of all experience levels and aims to change the way we perceive the art and process of creating the world’s best cocktails. Cocktail Codex proposes that there are just six fundamental recipes at the root of them all: The Old-Fashioned, Martini, Daiquiri, Sidecar, Whisky Highball and the Flip. By studying each of the six drinks, readers learn the mechanics of a particular style of cocktail and important lessons in technique and ingredients that will elevate their cocktails.
The nominees for the 2019 James Beard Foundation Media Awards, which took place on April 26, include various categories of cookbooks and other nonfiction food or beverage-related books that were published in the U.S. Cocktail Codex is the first-ever beverage book to win in the Book of the Year category, edging out 36 other book nominees across all categories.
Cocktail Codex was also nominated in the Beverage category, along with Apéritif: Cocktail Hour the French Way by Rebekah Peppler; The Aviary Cocktail Book by Grant Achatz, Nick Kokonas, Micah Melton, Allen Hemberger, and Sarah Hemberger; and Wine Folly: Magnum Edition by Madeline Puckette and Justin Hammack, which took home that category win.