The definitive guide to the contemporary craft cocktail movement, from one of the highest-profile, most critically lauded, and influential bars in the world.

From the authors of the best-selling and genre-defining cocktail book Death & Co, Cocktail Codex is a comprehensive primer on the craft of mixing drinks that employs the authors' unique "root cocktails" approach to give drink-makers of every level the tools to understand, execute, and improvise both classic and original cocktails.

"There are only six cocktails." So say Alex Day, Nick Fauchald, and David Kaplan, the visionaries behind the seminal craft cocktail bar Death & Co. In Cocktail Codex, these experts reveal for the first time their surprisingly simple approach to mastering cocktails: the "root recipes," six easily identifiable (and memorizable!) templates that encompass all cocktails: the old-fashioned, martini, daiquiri, sidecar, whisky highball, and flip. Once you understand the hows and whys of each "family," you'll understand why some cocktails work and others don't, when to shake and when to stir, what you can omit and what you can substitute when you're missing ingredients, why you like the drinks you do, and what sorts of drinks you should turn to--or invent--if you want to try something new.

AMAZON BEST BOOKS OF 2018

"Learn the template, and any cocktail you can think of is within reach."
—FOOD & WINE

“Too bad all college textbooks weren’t this much fun.”
- GARDEN & GUN

"A must for amateur and pro mixologists alike."
- CHICAGO TRIBUNE, TOP 10 COOKBOOKS OF 2018

“If Dora the Explorer turned twenty-one, split herself into
three people, and decided to write the Magna Carta of booze books,
this would be the result. And, unlike every other book you’ll read this
year, Cocktail Codex is packed with actual knowledge you can
use in the real world. Please, please, can Cinema Codex be next?
—STEVEN SODERBERGH, filmmaker

About the authors:

DAVID KAPLAN is the founder and owner of Death & Co, a New York City nightlife destination, as well as the co-owner of Proprietors LLC, a full-service hospitality company, with ALEX DAY. 

NICK FAUCHALD is a Brooklyn-based writer, editor, and publisher of print and digital products. He's been an editor at Food & Wine, Wine Spectator, and Every Day with Rachael Ray magazines. From 2008 to 2011, he was the editor-in-chief of Tasting Table.