This is a good book for anyone who enjoys adult beverages with a little flair.

Sure, it's easy enough to open a bottle of beer, tap your favorite box wine or even slosh a little straight alcohol in a glass, with or without ice. But sometimes, the occasion (or even your preference at the moment) calls for something more.

The cocktail.

Some folks would never dare make their own cocktails, or maybe they're just confident enough in their mixology skills to blend the right amounts of rum and coke for a truly simple drink. But Steven Grasse and Adam Erace (with the help of Lee Noble) think you're capable of so much more.

The Cocktail Workshop is not a pretentious recipe book for liquor snobs. At its heart, it's basic -- providing all the information needed by a true cocktail neophyte, with enough upper-level extras to interest even the experienced barkeep.

The book opens with the true basics: about 20 pages to explain what you need to get started. That includes the foundation "spirits and modifiers" that you should have in your home bar, the sweeteners and syrups, juices and sodas, produce, spices, garnishes, glassware and mixing gear (think shakers and strainers) that you'll be encountering in the book. And the authors break it down even further, offering lists of the bare necessities as well as expanded lists of extras for the more ambitious mixologist.

Then, they provide the recipes for 20 standard cocktails, along with details of the drink, some historical context and variations on the recipe ranging in complexity from simple to hard. It is, as the authors note in their press materials, a "deep-dive" into "the foundation of cocktail creation, and the delicious, sophisticated variations that will make them all your own."

Each chapter also includes a "workshop," which explains for readers how to properly infuse, garnish, age or otherwise fine-tune a drink for that signature touch. (One I'd like to try details the process for making your own bourbon cherries, a step up from the neon-red maraschino cherries commonly used in so many drinks these days.)

The Cocktail Workshop is easy to use and simple to understand. Even the most inexperienced drink-maker should be able to assemble some professional-grade drinks with this book in hand.

Nicely illustrated and conveniently organized, The Cocktail Workshop would be a boon in the collection of any budding bartender.