I recently finished reading Victoria Moore’s “How to Drink,” which was educational as well as being a terrific light summer read. The approachable informal style made the book feel like sitting down with a more knowledgeable friend to chat about drinks. Having only worked my way through part of the drinks, many of them classics, I got tired of searching through the book every time I wanted to reference a recipe. From that followed the idea of making visual guide to the beverages I liked/wanted to try, and from there I began sketching out graphic recipes.
These sort of diagrams have been done before, but these were mine, and I was determined to make them easy to read and visually appealing.
I redrew some drinks a couple of times searching for the best graphic system to codify the different ways of making a drink: which glass to choose, how to deal with ice, etc.
l kept everything hand drawn. They’re all fairly simple drawings, so doing them on a computer would probably make them appear sterile, and uninteresting. Also, I was trying to learn each drink.
I finally landed on a style and decided to try coloring them in. Unfortunately, so far there’s no way to see the steps involved in making the drink.
Doing a diagram with watercolor was always a next step for me anyway, but I like the idea of producing this as an adult, coloring/recipe book that can be colored in as you try the drinks. It’s a neat idea, which for now will remain an open project.