Courtesy Rachel K. Miller
Six years ago, St. Louis-native Rachel Miller began collecting vintage barware—Midcentury highballs, embellished gold tumblers, designer wine glasses. During the earliest months of the pandemic, she decided to take that hobby to the next level. Using her skills and background as a former sweater designer for May Co., she began illustrating cocktail recipes, inspired by the TV shows she was binging on at night and the cocktails she was ordering as take-out from local restaurants. Encouraged by the positive response she was hearing from friends and seeing on social media, she turned the series of drawings into a book of more than 60 recipes with little-known cultural and historic details about each drink. We recently spoke with Miller about The Illustrated Cocktail.
How did you come up with the idea for the book?
Right when the pandemic started, my two grown children came home. I had a lot of time on my hands. I’m an interior designer at Expressions Furniture and we closed for three months. My daughters and I would watch TV and have a drink. During an episode of Mad Men, I was like, “Oh, I should make an old fashioned.” I ended up drawing a cocktail recipe. I posted it to Instagram and people were like, “Oh my gosh, this is so great.” After a couple weeks [of doing that], people suggested I make a book out of the drawings.
When did you develop an interest in cocktails?
I’m not a bartender and I'm not an expert on drinks. I Googled the 50 most popular drinks in the world. My favorite is the whiskey sour. During the pandemic, we picked up cocktails from restaurants and that made me think that this would be a great way to showcase what I do.
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Tell us about the publishing process.
The book is illustrated. It's full color. I created the book on my iPad through a program called Procreate, and I self-published it. I raised $12,000 on a Kickstarter campaign to fund it. A friend of mine from college was the designer, she put everything in the format that it needed to be. My sister-in-law helped edit the copy. She gave each piece a flourish.
What challenges did you encounter in your process?
When I drew the book, I used branded liquors. A publisher I spoke to told me that I couldn’t publish the book this way; I needed to get the copyright on every bottle, even on the shape of the bottle. I ended up going to antique malls and buying a bunch of decanters, bottles, and things like that. I removed the branded bottles and redrew each of them. I thought it was going to take me a whole year, but it ended up taking me about another six months. I was devastated when that happened because the drawings were really cool and people liked them. But I can’t sell those.
What do you love about the book?
I love the book because it celebrates making a beautiful cocktail. I tell people that [a good cocktail] is quality not quantity. Take your time, use a beautiful glass, and look at the beautiful pictures. I think it will resonate with people because it’s a new way to look at a cocktail book, and they will want it because it’s beautiful and it’s fun.
Any tips for setting up a home bar?
You can put a home bar anywhere. You can tuck it into a lot of places. I think one of the most important things [to have on hand] is a good measuring tool. There are measuring cups that have the measurements for an ounce, a half ounce, a quarter ounce. It makes it really easy. I know it’s fun to use the jigger but as a beginner, having that clear measuring cup where you can see the measuring lines, is best. That’s probably one of my favorite tools.
The Illustrated Cocktail is available for purchase online at theillustratedcocktail.com and on Amazon. It is also available locally at Lusso, Provisions STL, and The Novel Neighbor.
