By Adam Rogers
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, May 2014
Belly up to the bar for this thorough treatment of ethanol, a drug that transcends geography, culture, and maybe even evolutionary time to constitute a key component of human recreation, if not the human diet. In Proof, science writer and Wired editor Adam Rogers leads a tour of breweries, distilleries, bars, and research labs, where craftsmen and scientists seek to learn the mysteries of creating alcoholic beverages and to chart the physiological and psychological effects of the drug.
“Understanding our relationship with alcohol is about understanding our relationship with everything—with the chemistry of the universe around us, with our own biology, with our cultural norms, and with each other,” Rogers writes in the introduction to Proof. “The ...