Authors hate it when reviewers refer to their book as a ‘weighty tome’ as it implies that the contents are going to be about as much fun as Deuteronomy. So I should make it clear that while Tim Hayward’s The Cocktail Hour (Quadrille, £20) is extremely weighty, that’s because the production values are off the scale. The monks at Lindisfarne could scarcely have put more effort into illuminating their work. And while the paper is heavy, Hayward’s writing is as refreshing as a perfectly made dry martini. There are hundreds of cocktail books out there, but none combine Hayward’s erudition, obsession and sense of humour. He is at once deadly serious and very, very funny. It’s the best book on the subject since Bernard DeVoto’s 1948 book The Hour.

Kathleen Burk’s Wine: A Global History (Profile, £30) is another weighty tome at nearly 900 pages long, but it does cover the subject from the beginnings of civilisation to the present day. The sections on the ancient world are particularly good. Connoisseurship has a long history: the Egyptians labelled their wine by origin, winemaker, vintage and quality, and even by the occasion on which it should be drunk, such as ‘merrymaking’. Burk........

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