Shaken and Stirred

by William L. Hamilton

William L. Hamilton loves a good gimlet. Rose's and lime. Straight up. Perfectly iced. Make the glass pretty too. "It ruined my reputation for thinking before I speak," he writes of that love. "I accept the trade-off." Like Lewis Carroll's Alice, when Hamilton sees it, he drinks it -- and tells the incredible tale.In "Shaken and Stirred," his biweekly Sunday Styles column, now an original book of his drinking adventures, the intrepid New York Times reporter offers a gimlet-eyed look at contemporary culture through the panoptic view of a cocktail glass. From the venerable martini to the young Dirty Jane, Hamilton shares his tip on the sip.You hold in your hands a guide to "how it goes down." Not a cocktail manual or a Baedeker to the bar scene but a drinker's guide to drinking. These are four-ounce adventures of cocktails and the people who make them, from the bartenders and chefs to the patrons, the politicians and the power players of the liquor industry.There are tales of the Champag