Whiskey Companion: A Connoisseur's Guide to the World's Finest Whiskies Book

This is a funny little book that could just as easily have been called "The History of Drinking". It starts out with nomads drinking fermented camel's milk and makes its way through ciders and fruit wines as people settled down and began to tend orchards. It talks about gin's reputation in England and moves on to the production of vodka and whiskey. It talks about public perception of drink as dangerous to the working classes (it leads to decreased productivity, don't you know...) and as something to be winked at when indulged in to excess by the upper classes. The author is delightfully opinionated, and I thought that her sarcasm was as much fun as anything in the book.