The Cocktail

Combining history, subjective rumination, and a few nods to the occult, author Lanza exposes the cocktail as a ritual, a religious ceremony that sates the modern mind and soul. He shows how cocktails have impacted politics, movies, popular songs, architecture, circadian rhythms, social interactions, and yes, even the mythic power of such American patriarchs as George Washington and his contemporary incarnation Frank Sinatra.

In the mix are such cocktail culture personalities as Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Walter Winchell, Cole Porter, Elizabeth Taylor, Hugh Hefner, Truman Capote, the Rat Pack, James Bond, and others whose celebrity and intricate sense of "cool" have proven how much "cocktail time" promises Heaven on Earth.