Risky Whiskey (Bohemia Bartenders Mysteries)
Cozy Mystery
1st in Series
Publisher: Velvet Petal Press (July 21, 2020)
Print Length: 250 pages

Synopsis

Stirring up trouble in New Orleans …

Eager to shake up her drinks and her life, mixologist Pepper Revelle jumps at an invitation to join the elite Bohemia Bartenders. Leader Neil thinks she’ll be the perfect advance gal for his team at a colorful cocktail convention in her hometown of New Orleans, but the job turns out to be more bananas than a drunk monkey. Setting up the key tasting for their distiller client, she and Neil discover their whiskey has gone dangerously bad. But how? And was this shocking poisoning more than an accident?

As Pepper and Neil try to figure out what happened, keep the drinks flowing and help distiller Dash Reynolds survive the weekend, they find themselves the target of increasingly scary attacks. Maybe it’s the danger, or maybe it’s the drinks, but Pepper also can’t help an inconvenient attraction to cocktail nerd Neil as they stir up trouble and try to figure out who’s out to get them — before they’re sliced and squeezed like a lemon twist in a Sazerac.

Risky Whiskey is the first book in the Bohemia Bartenders Mysteries, funny whodunits with a dash of romance set in a convivial collective of cocktail lovers, eccentrics and mixologists. These cozy culinary comedies contain a hint of heat, a splash of cursing and shots of laughter, served over hand-carved ice.

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Guest Post

Craft cocktail culture is an intoxicating setting for mysteries

by Lucy Lakestone

When readers think of culinary cozy mysteries, they usually think of chefs and bakers — delicious food accompanied by devious plots. In my new Bohemia Bartenders Mysteries, I couldn’t resist focusing on the drinks that, ideally, accompany all that cuisine — craft cocktails.

Cocktails have experienced a renaissance in recent years. As my heroine, mixologist Pepper Revelle, points out, “The newly minted foodies who watched chefs on TV all day long were only just waking up to how wonderful cocktails could be with their cuisine, and I wanted to show them the way.”

In Risky Whiskey, Pepper joins a team of bartenders at a New Orleans cocktail convention to help promote whiskey made by a distiller from their Florida town. Dangerous and sometimes funny complications ensue. But always at the heart of the story is the idea that cocktails have come into their own as a culinary art.

While my mysteries are humorous, Pepper and her friends take craft cocktails seriously. Perhaps the character who is most serious about them is her geeky counterpart Neil. And the fact that he’s totally opposite in personality to the exuberant Pepper makes her attraction to him all the funnier.

It’s not like modern mixologists invented the craft cocktail. In many ways, the cocktail revival is deeply rooted in the past — from elegant classics (like the Manhattan) to complex tiki drinks (a Mai Tai). New Orleans has long been home to delicious cocktails, and I’m not talking about the neon-colored sugar bombs popular on Bourbon Street. I’m talking about cocktails that are closely identified with the Crescent City, including the Sazerac, Vieux Carré and French 75.

New Orleans is also home to bars old and new that serve these beautifully balanced potions, and, of course, Pepper and her friends sample many of them.

One bar they visit is Beachbum Berry’s Latitude 29. Jeff Berry is known for unearthing the lost drink recipes that made midcentury tiki bars so popular. He helped lead a revival that is alive and well, not just in his bar but in a thriving tiki culture — which plays a big part in book two, Wrecked by Rum, set in Fort Lauderdale.

Of course, the Bohemia Bartenders do a lot more than drink. They make cocktails. I’ve been to cocktail conventions like my fictional one, and I’m lucky to have a great home bar (especially now!), where Mr. Lakestone shakes up wonderful concoctions. In short, I love craft cocktails, and I really enjoyed writing about tricks of the craft (like hand-carving ice cubes) and insider lingo (such as boomerangs — drinks bartenders send from one bar to another as a friendly gesture).

Given my characters’ devotion to crafting perfect cocktails, these novels are true culinary mysteries. Pepper and Neil and friends make wonderful drinks as they navigate danger and figure out who did what. Mixologists are chefs with shakers. And in the case of the Bohemia Bartenders, they make pretty clever sleuths, too.

Learn more about Lucy and her books at LucyLakestone.com

About the Author

Lucy Lakestone is an award-winning author who lives on Florida’s east central coast, among the towns that serve as an inspiration for the hot romances of her Bohemia Beach Series and the jumping-off point for the Bohemia Bartenders Mysteries. She’s been a journalist, photographer, editor, and video producer but prefers living in her imagination, where the moon is full and the cocktails are divine.

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