Scott Beattie wants people to think about cocktails in a different light. Forget about canned juice, packaged bases, and artificial packaged bases, and artificial liquors, cocktails should be created from local, seasonal ingredients at the peak of flavor. As bartender at the Martini House in Saint Helena, Scott’s interest in applying artisanal techniques was sparked by Domaine Charbay, local distillers of fine, fruit-infused vodkas. He was particularly intrigued by their newly released Meyer lemon and blood orange vodkas. It was also there that Scott met Douglas Keane and Nick Peyton of Cyrus in Healdsburg.

It was at Cyrus that Scott began experimenting with products from local distillers, purchasing daily from farms, hobbyist farmers, and backyard growers. His experiments evolved into drinks like the Meyer Beautiful, the Thai Monkey, and the Pomlranian. All three of those drinks appear in Scott’s recently released book, “Artisanal Cocktails: Drinks Inspired by the Seasons from the Bar at Cyrus.”

His recipes use fresh herbs, essential oils, edible flowers, juices, and spices—including cardamom, nutmeg, and black pepper. He finishes each beverage with garnishes that include black-eyed Susan petals, peppermint, and amaranth from local farms and from Beattie’s own backyard.

Artisanal Cocktails takes Scott’s passion for using great ingredients to a practical level for both the home bartender and the professional one. The 150–page book presents produce that you might find at a farmers’ market at a particular time of year and teaches the reader how to process each ingredient correctly for use in seasonal cocktails. There are also lots of useful techniques outlined in Artisanal Cocktails, such as how to make juice-based foams, infuse simple syrups with dry spices or essential oils, and how to dehydrate a myriad of different fruit slices at home with your oven.