A mixologist’s spirited how-to

At some point in the mid-1990s, certainly by 1995, there was a schism in the American barroom. Bartenders became “mixologists.” Martinis started coming in more colors than crayons -- and made with vodka. Old-school drinkers responded with their best barroom sneers -- there was even a New Yorker article written in defense of gin -- but tradition was helpless in the face of youth bearing swizzle sticks.

Ten years later, the movement has a new bible. “Master mixologist” Nick Mautone, a former manager of the Gotham Bar and Grill and the Gramercy Tavern in New York, has come out with “Raising the Bar,” a book instructing the generation that met and married over multicolored martinis how to make them at home.

Presumably it will have an audience. Mautone cannot have become so proud of his basil-flavored martini without having witnessed someone consuming it. However, if the recipes don’t always appeal, the first thing to observe about this book is that it offers an opportunity for rapprochement. It’s time for the wordologists among us, people who still say “bartender,” to acknowledge that it took mixology, its delight at fruit flavors, hooch and a shaker full of ice, to rescue drinking from wine snobs.

The ‘80s were tough on those of us who wanted Scotch, not Chardonnay. Mixology made it socially acceptable to ask for hard liquor again.

So to mixologists everywhere: Thank you.

Enough love.

So much about this book is baffling, starting with its inception. It’s as self-defeating as a magician writing a how-to book. Surely the glamour of cocktails is that we can’t make them at home. Half of the pleasure of consuming them is watching a bartender navigate a bank of shining bottles to concoct any drink a customer might name.

Rusty Nail? Coming up.

Spotting the signature touches is part of the joy, noting the antique tulip-shaped martini glasses, relishing the viscous texture of chilled gin, the flush of pleasure when a bartender remembers your order.

This is not to say Mautone is the first to give recipes. There’s been a Savoy Hotel cocktail book for ages. The difference between it and Mautone’s is the young author’s conviction that anyone might use it. The old guard gave recipes as translations, to give us an idea of what the engaging old lush three stools down was drinking (a Rusty Nail is Scotch and Drambuie).

By contrast, Mautone has produced a boozy cookbook, urging us to use seasonal fruit and make our own syrups. It starts with a primer on equipment and techniques. We’re shown shakers, jiggers, zesters, muddlers and reamers, introduced to shaking versus stirring.

There is a guided tour through spirits, an explanation of 16 shapes of glasses, three sizes of ice cube, a section on twists, zest, swirls and wedges. This Martha-issue mix of marching orders and tips is avid and occasionally even touching. Mautone shows a tender preference for wines and spirits from his home state of New York, though when he classes Calvados with applejack, one realizes why he didn’t make his name as a sommelier.

The book won’t appeal to purists on the cocktail circuit, either. For these, martinis are made of gin and a trace of vermouth. But here we return to the bartender/mixologist divide. Mixologists live to reinvent. Mautone replaces the celery in a Bloody Mary with a pickled carrot. By contrast, a good bartender would use celery kept fresh in a jar of salted water.

Which is better? Mautone serves his Bloody Mary on ice. At the Groucho Club in London, where bartenders not only inflict hangovers but cure them, the tomato juice is drained off the ice before serving. Otherwise the drink becomes slushy.

As a postscript, it bears noting that alternative medicine has become strategic in its recruitment. A book by London-based health writer Raje Airey seeks to nab converts after a long night in the pub. Her slim volume “50 Natural Ways to Relieve a Hangover” substitutes herbal teas, foot massages, crystal “magic” and color therapy for hair of the dog. For street cred, there is also a big breakfast. But Airey recommends organic eggs, preferably poached.