Proof: The Science of Booze - Hardcover

Rogers, Adam

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0547897960 ISBN 13: 9780547897967

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014

Synopsis

Named a Best Science Book of 2014 by Amazon, Wired, the Guardian, and NBC
Winner of the 2014 Gourmand Award for Best Spirits Book in the United States
 
“Lively . . . [Rogers’s] descriptions of the science behind familiar drinks exert a seductive pull.” — New York Times
 
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.
 
“Rogers’s book has much the same effect as a good drink. You get a warm sensation, you want to engage with the wider world, and you feel smarter than you probably are. Above all, it makes you understand how deeply human it is to take a drink.” — Wall Street Journal

About this title

From the Back Cover

Named a Best Science Book of 2014 by Amazon, Wired, the Guardian, and NBC
Winner of the 2014 Gourmand Award for Best Spirits Book in the United States

Lively . . . [Rogers s] descriptions of the science behind familiar drinks exert a seductive pull. New York Times

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.

Rogers s book has much the same effect as a good drink. You get a warm sensation, you want to engage with the wider world, and you feel smarter than you probably are. Above all, it makes you understand how deeply human it is to take a drink. Wall Street Journal

Adam Rogers is the articles editor at Wired, where his feature story The Angels Share won the 2011 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award. Before Wired, he was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT and a writer covering science and technology for Newsweek. He lives in Berkeley, California.

From the Inside Flap

Follow a single, microscopic yeast cell down a rabbit hole, and Alice, aka Adam, will take you on a fascinating romp through the Wonderland of ethyl alcohol, from Nature s own fermentation to today s best Scotch whiskies and worst hangovers. This book is a delightful marriage of scholarship and fun. Robert Wolke, author of What Einstein Told His Cook

Humans have been perfecting the science of alcohol production for ten thousand years, but modern scientists are only just beginning to distill the complex reactions behind the perfect buzz. In a spirited tour across continents and cultures, Adam Rogers puts our alcoholic history under the microscope, from our ancestors accidental discovery of fermented drinks to the cutting-edge laboratory research that proves why or even if people actually like the stuff.

From fermentation to distillation to aging, Proof offers a unique glimpse inside the barrels, stills, tanks, and casks that produce iconic drinks. Rogers ventures from the whisky-making mecca of the Scottish Highlands to the most sophisticated gene-sequencing labs in the world and to more than one bar introducing us to the motley characters and evolving science behind the latest developments in boozy technology. He uncovers alcohol s deepest mysteries, chasing the physics, molecular biology, organic chemistry, and even metallurgy that power alcohol production, and the subtle mixture of psychology and neurobiology that fuels our taste for those products.

With intoxicating enthusiasm, Rogers reveals alcohol as a miracle of science. If you ve ever wondered exactly how your drink of choice arrived in your glass, or exactly what will happen to you once you empty it, Proof makes an unparalleled drinking companion.

Edition details

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0547897960
• ISBN 13: 9780547897967
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 264