Nashville Bartender Mike Wolf Releases New Cocktail Book

Beloved Nashville-based bartender Mike Wolf has compiled recipes and stories from friends across Nashville and beyond to produce the new book, Lost Spring: How We Cocktailed Through Crisis (Turner Publishing; August 25, 2020; e-book; 9781684426881; $6.99) to honor and support his local communities during these unforeseen difficult times. Here, readers will find cocktail recipes, techniques for making cordials, and plenty of insight from local mavericks of the mixology scene in Nashville and across the country.

In Lost Spring, Wolf brings together more than 50 different bartenders, sommeliers, and industry experts–many from Nashville, but also including luminaries from Atlanta, Charleston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, and beyond –to discuss what it has been like to go straight from a natural disaster–the devastating tornado that ripped through the city in early March, decimating businesses and taking the lives of two local bartenders–to a global pandemic that shut down the restaurant and bar business for months and still has no end in sight. A sampling of featured recipes includes:

• Adriana from Andy Wedge, Momofuku Bar Wayo (New York, NY)
• Catavino from Brandon Bramhall, Attaboy (Nashville, TN)
• Mr. Sparkle from Travis Allen Archer, Osteria La Buca (Los Angeles, CA)
• Queen of the Rodeo from Demi Natoli, White Limozeen (Nashville, TN)
• Safe Word from Jeremiah Jason Blake, Bastion (Nashville, TN)
• Tempest of Tansy from Adam Morgan, Husk Nashville(Nashville, TN)
• Terra Firma from Matt Tocco, Strategic Hospitality (Nashville, TN)
• The Bold Adventure from Jessica Backhus, Delaney Oyster House(Charleston, SC)

In addition to providing recipe inspiration, bartenders discuss what they’ve missed about being behind the bar, what has changed in their approach to the profession, all while dispensing plenty of recommendations for quarantine music, entertainment, and of course, cocktails! The book even includes its own Spotify playlist curated by local DJ and mixologist Patrick Goodspeed.

Compiled by local writer and bartender Mike Wolf, author of 2019’s Garden to Glass, this book aims to catch a unique moment in time when the world seemed to spin out of control and come to a halt all at the same time. A portion of the proceeds from sales of Lost Spring will go to Tennessee Action for Hospitality’s grant program to support service industry workers statewide. Local spirits brands TC Craft and Cathead Distillery have joined on as co-sponsors of the book by kickstarting the fundraising with generous donations.

Lost Spring: How We Cocktailed Through Crisis will be available initially as an e-book and will be available in print in May 2021 from Turner Publishing. The e-book can now be purchased here.