Drinks The Rock & Roll Way

Bruce Von Stiers

Staci Layne Wilson is a podcaster, director, producer and screenwriter. She is also the author of several fiction and non-fiction books.

Staci has a series featuring short stories she calls Rock & Roll Nightmares. So far there have been six books in the series, both fiction and non-fiction.

Now Staci has a seventh book to add to the series. The title of the book is Rock & Roll Nightmares: Rocktails: 102 Drink Recipes That Rock.

In addition to her many other talents, Staci is a rock historian and has done interviews with a large number of rock artists. She has an extensive pool of artists to choose from for information. Some of that information ended up being drink recipes. Which is the thrust of this new book, favorite drink recipes from rock artists, or recipes inspired by them.

The book begins with an introduction from Staci. Then it moves onto the first section, Soft Rock: Mocktails, which contains non-alcoholic drink recipes.

The first drink in Mocktails is The Clean Getaway. It comes from guitarist Ricky Byrd. Containing just juice and soda, it was inspired by a solo album from Ricky and Bay Breeze classic cocktail.

Then there is Running On Empty, which is by Staci, but was inspired by the Jackson Browne tune. The recipes in the book that aren't directly attributed to a specific artist come from Staci.

The book also has some photos of what the drinks should look like if mixed properly and sometimes accented with fruit or other things.

Other drinks in this section come from people such as Stacey Keith, Adam Rifkin, Shermy Freeman and even Russell Aquarius, the fictional rock star from Staci's film The Second Age of Aquarius.

Mixed in with the recipes and photos are quotes from rock stars. There is a quote about hangovers and one from David Lee Roth about jogging and drinking at the same time. Janis Joplin and Axl Rose are also quoted in the book.

Also included in amongst the recipes are little tidbits of trivia. The classic bombshell Rita Hayworth is featured in a trivia tidbit about the origins of the margarita.

Some of the recipes utilize interesting ingredients. One recipe calls for dried culinary lavender, while another calls for a couple of teaspoons of maple syrup.

The second section of the book is Soft Rock: Wine Spritzers, Beer. As some of these recipes are tongue-in-cheek, one of the recipes in this section simply calls for you to get beer and drink it.

Recipes in this section were inspired by artists such as Seals & Croft and Sammie Hagar along with songs by Huey Lewis and Guns & Roses. And some of the recipes have fun, kitschy names like Gimme Seltzer and Moby Grappa.

For the most part, the ingredients for the drinks are easy to obtain. Your local grocery chain should have the non-alcoholic ingredients, while the average liquor store should be able to sell you the alcohol related ingredients. And, for a few of the recipes, there are substitutions listed if you can't find or don't like a specific ingredient.

Hard Rock: Spirits, Liqueurs is the third section of the book. One of the recipes adds a little nip to traditional Irish Coffee. There is also a pretty good Bloody Mary recipe.

In this section Staci includes a recipe called Walk Don Rum. It was inspired by The Ventures hit song Walk Don't Run. Staci's dad, Don Wilson, was the leader of that band and loved rum and coke.

There is also a fun seeming gin fizzy drink recipe called Hellbent For Lather. And there is a margarita recipe inspired by Santana's Black Magic Woman. Steve Perry and music journalist Sherry Thomas provided the recipe for the chocolate infused drink, Oh, Sherrie, which was also partially inspired by Steve Perry. And Joni Mitchell and The Cars inspired a drink recipe that features tequila.

One of the recipes that caught my attention was Let There Be Rocks. It is a tequila-based drink from Eva Marie, the frontwoman for one of my favorite bands, Eva Under Fire.

I am surprised and intrigued by a few of the ingredients listed in the recipes. I didn't know there was such as thing as peanut butter whiskey. But there is.

The fourth section of the book is Punk Rock: Non Conformists. A recipe in this section features my favorite spiced rum, Captain Morgan, and comes from Ozzie Osborn's bassist Phil Soussan. The recipe is called, appropriately enough, Shot In The Dark.

There is a story and a recipe from Billy Bob Thornton. The recipe was called The Box Master after Billy's band The Boxmasters. Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, Steely Dan co-founder and guitarist for The Doobie Brothers, shared a quick and easy martini recipe.

Ruthann Jagge is one of my favorite new horror fiction authors. She has a recipe in this section that features Irish cream liqueur and white chocolate liqueur. The recipe is Sex & Candy and was inspired by the debut single of the same name by indie rockers Marcy Playground.

Suzi Quatro slides in with a four shot recipe called Stumblin' In. More than a couple of these drinks and you'll probably be doing more than just stumbling in.

At the end of the book Staci includes brief bios of the people who contributed recipes.

I am not much of a mixologist. I'm one of the people who would add too much of one seven and not enough of the other seven in a seven and seven drink. But I think that I wouldn't have any trouble putting together any of the drink recipes in this book.

Rock & Roll Nightmares: Rocktails: 102 Drink Recipes That Rock is an entertaining book. Not only are there great drink recipes, the book has little tidbits on rock stars and some fun quotes from a few of them.

Rock & Roll Nightmares: Rocktails: 102 Drink Recipes That Rock is available at retailers such as amazon.

If you are interested in finding out more about this book, other books in the Rock & Roll Nightmare series and Staci Layne Wilson, visit Staci's official website at https://www.stacilaynewilson.com/

Back to the BVS Reviews Main Menu

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

© 2023 Bruce E Von Stiers