If you are going to pick up one cocktail book this fall—or if you are looking for one to gift your cocktail-loving friend—make it For the Love of Cocktails by Evelyn Chick (Figure 1 Publishing).

Chick is the ultimate cocktail pro, and one well-known to cocktailians in Vancouver, where she started her bartending career, and Toronto, where she is continuing it as the multi-hyphenate bar and beverage consultant, owner of Ahma and Love of Cocktails, and now author.

Her first book is filled neither with tried-and-true classics nor with super-complicated, bazillion-ingredient whizz-bang concoctions. Rather, it is packed with helpful advice and fresh, exciting new drinks you can’t wait to serve your friends, like the large-format Group G&T, zero-proof Zero Hero made with verjus and her sweetly spiced take on an Espresso Martini, the Afternoon Martini.

Most of all, it will inspire you to shake up your own bartending game.

“Such beautiful and inspiration moments in my life, the ones I continually come back to, all have one commonality—they were about the simple joy of sharing flavours in approachable ways,” Chick writes in her introduction. “It’s not about the complexity of the construction of the cocktail …. It is about joyful pursuit, being unafraid to make mistakes, and the willingness to try something new.”