From KCRW, I'm Evan Kliman and you're listening to good food.

Throughout history, African American alcohol consumption has been portrayed as derelict, writes food journalist and

historian Tony Tipton Martin. She spent two decades buying and studying

recipe collections for her award-winning book, The Jemima Code, and its follow-up Jubilee.

In her latest work, Tony turns to African-American mixology, ensuring that those behind

tradition and innovation are not forgotten.

Hi Tony.

I love this book. It has so much exuberance.

I had so much fun working on this book.

Oh, I'm sure you can feel it.

Can you share your early memories of your parents hospitality and your father's

makeshift bar?

Yeah, you know, my family was part of that generation where backyard barbecues and entertaining

and picnics.

That was just classic summer activities, plus my family, my parents were club members, so they often had friends over for parties.

And my mom used to love to set up this lavish buffet in our basement and my dad built himself a really cool bar.

Initially that bar was made from my grandmother's hideaway bed.

It was very cool.

It was this, I can just remember it I was only about six years old,

but it had Asian etching on the outside of it and it basically looked like a box that had a fold-out twin bed inside but when you opened it the top doors above the bed which is a kind of peculiar combination when you think about it, but the top of it was a bar and she kept her glass wear in there and this amazing little pop-eye decanter that I was in love with as a child.

And so when they kind of outgrew that, maybe it was falling apart, I'm not exactly sure,

but my dad built his own bar and began collecting different things from around the country when they would travel.

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