Our editors pick the best of the web’s booze writing. This week: 2018’s must-have bar book, bartenders as spirits blenders, and hospitality ‘do’s’.

The Aviary Cocktail Book [Kickstarter]
Dubbed a cookbook for a cocktail bar, Alinea‘s founders Grant Achatz and Nick Kokonas are crowdsourcing funds for a book of The Aviary’s recipes. It promises beautifully styled photos of cocktails more akin to the culinary tomes of Alain Ducasse and Thomas Keller, with over 100 of their elaborate recipes tucked within. Pledges start at USD60 a book and is estimated to arrive in July next year.

Pawn shop bars and poverty chic: how working-class life was colonised [The Guardian]
Addressing a recent industry trend of turning pawn shops, laundromats and even soup kitchens into bars, The Guardian argues that these establishments “selling a theatrical form of slumming” are not-so-gracefully appropriating working class tropes to entertain the haves.

Cocktail bars are layering spirits to create ultra-complex new drinks [Food & Wine]
Not content with pouring spirits straight out of the bottle, some bars in the US are pre-batching their own blends of gin, amari and rum to differentiate and add complexity to their versions of the classics.

Ye olde bar crawl [October]
Drinks writer Aaron Goldfarb goes on a crawl of New York’s oldest bars – some of whom have survived since the Prohibition era.

The history of the Julep strainer [Imbibe]
Once popular as wedding gifts, then deployed as ice guards for mustachioed sippers, Imbibe examines the Julep strainer’s history from its early 1800s beginnings.

What hospitality means to Times restaurant critic Pete Wells [New York Times]
Citing his experience at Danny Meyer’s iconic Union Square Cafe, Wells argues that the best brand of hospitality blurs the line between treating diners as a ‘customer’ exchanging money for food, and a ‘guest’ invited over for dinner.