Proof

The Science of Booze

By: Adam Rogers

Narrated by: Sean Runnette

Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's summary

A spirited narrative on the fascinating art and science of alcohol, sure to inspire cocktail party chats on making booze, tasting it, and its effects on our bodies and brains.

Drinking gets a lot more interesting when you know what's actually inside your glass of microbrewed ale, single-malt whisky, or Napa Cabernet Sauvignon. All of them begin with fermentation, where a fungus called yeast binges on sugar molecules and poops out ethanol. Humans have been drinking the results for 10,000 years. Distillation is a 2,000-year-old technology—invented by a woman—that we're still perfecting today. And the molecular codes of alcoholic flavors remain a mystery pursued by scientists with high-tech laboratories and serious funding.

In Proof, Adam Rogers reveals alcohol as a miracle of science, going deep into the pleasures of making and drinking booze—and the effects of the latter. The people who make and sell alcohol may talk about history and tradition, but alcohol production is really powered by physics, molecular biology, organic chemistry, and a bit of metallurgy—and our taste for those products is a melding of psychology and neurobiology.

Proof takes listeners from the whisky-making mecca of the Scottish highlands to the oenology labs at UC Davis, from Kentucky bourbon country to the most sophisticated gene-sequencing labs in the world—and to more than one bar—bringing to life the motley characters and evolving science behind the latest developments in boozy technology.

©2014 Adam Rogers (P)2014 Blackstone Audiobooks

Science and history told like a bar anecdote

The epitome of pop science writing. Shares his wonderment and passion with the easy tone of a good friend at a bar. Sean Runnette is solid as usual, probably the best American narrator of non-fiction

Exceptional

The book is entertaining, with an educational goldmine about the accidents and science of inebriating beverage. I enjoyed it immensely.

The Science of Booze! YES!

What did you love best about Proof?

There's a huge level of naivety regarding 'booze'. This is a deep dive into several elements of 'Booze'. The everyday beer or wine. The dark liquors. The processes involved. There's a lot there. This could have gone on and on or branched off into hundreds of different rabbit holes.

What did you like best about this story?

The quest for the cure... for the 'HANG OVER'.

What about Sean Runnette’s performance did you like?

Sean did a fine job. There are obvious editing errors as Sean starts or stops a segment. Nothing overly annoying.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No. This isn't a page turner. More of an interesting 'tech' manual on 'Booze'.

very informative, fun to listen to

wealth of information, well read and great reader to hold the listeners interest thru out

Excellent View of History AND Science!

I loved this book, it had fascinating history and in depth science explorations of all sorts of "booze" from all over the world. Told in an engaging manner and sprinkled with funny anecdotes, I will definitely listen again, especially to catch more understanding of some of the *technical* explanations that went a bit over my head in some places. Good narration, thoroughly enjoyable!

thirsty?

loved it. this was a thoroughly informational read about all things booze and bars. definitely worth it for any connoisseur of the drink!

Overall very good, but some technical errors

Full disclosure- I own a distillery and am familiar with the technical side of distilling. Overall this is a very interesting book, but there are a few errors regarding distilling. The biggest one is the myth that "bad distillation" can cause blindness or death. This is absolutely not true UNLESS a distiller attempts to distill denatured (toxic) ethanol. The myth stems from prohibition when the government required industrial ethanol to be denatured and often methanol was used. Moonshiners believing that because methanol boils at a lower temperature (as pointed out in the book) that with distillation all of the "bad stuff" could be removed. That is not true and the problem is that methanol is tasteless and odorless and can't be detected (except by machines which were not invented yet). A regular fermentation such as for whiskey or brandy or rum will not contain enough methanol to cause blindness. If it did almost everyone would be blind (the methanol is present in beer and wine). The "bad moonshine" myth will never die. I tested our distillate and methanol is present in the heads, hearts, and all the way into the tails and the total volume is less than half the amount needed to cause blindness. There are other errors that he repeated based on common wisdom, but the blindness and death one is the worst.

Great Book on an Interesting Subject

Want to better understand the history, mythology, science and cultural aspects of alcohol? This book does it in an easy to grasp and engaging way. Highly recommended.

Informative and Fun

If you aren't fascinated by the microbial evolution of yeast and how methanol reacts in the body to ethanol, you may not be fascinated by the real science of booze. Or you may find yourself interested in science you never thought you could understand! Really enjoyed every minute of "Proof"! Make sure you listen until the end.

a little over the top on love of alcohol

there's enough real science to make it interesting but it's a little much on its hero worship of alcohol.