Beer & Brewer has two copies of award-winning writer Max Allen’s latest book ‘Intoxicating: Ten drinks that shaped Australia’ to giveaway. Simply email us here and two winners will be selected at random on Wednesday 5 August.
In search of answers, Intoxicating sees Allen taking readers on a personal journey through Australia’s colourful and complex drinking history, glass in hand.
He tastes the fermented sap of the Tasmanian cider gum, enjoyed by Indigenous people long before European invasion, sips ‘claret’ and ‘sherry’ in the cool stone cellars of the country’s oldest wineries, samples 150-year-old champagne rescued from a shipwreck and helps brew an iconic 1960s Australian lager.
Allen also shares recipes for historic cocktails to try at home (Blow My Skull, anyone?), introduces many of the characters from Australia’s boozy history and offers a glimpse of how our drinking culture might evolve in the future.
‘Break out the adjectives. A book about grog that’s not only an appealing, invigorating, exhilarating and heady brew, but a valuable and uniquely informative national history.’
— Robert Drewe
‘Max Allen sucks you into this book by promising lots of grog stories but what he does, the sly dog, is teach you about your country.’
— Bruce Pascoe
‘A history as potent as the devil’s own firewater, and writing as beautiful as that final drop of Grange Hermitage. Pour a few chapters out for yourself.’
— Josh Birmingham
An honorary fellow in history at the University of Melbourne, Allen has been writing about booze for almost 30 years: he is the wine and drinks columnist for the Australian Financial Review, longtime contributor to Gourmet Traveller Magazine, and a regular presenter at masterclasses and festivals around the world.
Intoxicating is published by Thames & Hudson and be purchased here.
To win a copy, you must be currently residing in New Zealand or Australia.
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