What is a slack-ma-girdle? Or a submarino? How did White Horse whisky get its name? Or Old Bawdy barley wine? How do you make a really dry martini? Or beer? Or champagne?

The answers to these enquiries and thousands of others are revealed in this unique guide to every kind of alcohol, compiled by dedicated drinker and collector of little histories, Ned Halley, who is an award-winning writer on beer, a nationally syndicated wine columnist and author of numerous books on drink.

In a straightforward A to Z format, The Wordsworth Dictionary of Drink identifies thousands of individual brewers, distillers and winemakers, as well as the names of their products. The dictionary aims to be of real, practical help in locating beers and ciders, wines and spirits of every hue to their maker and place of origin.

Here, too, are descriptive terms used on labels, along with the less-formal words used by producers and purveyors to promote their products in the market place. Origins, from village breweries to entire wine-producing regions, are located by nation, province and district. In many cases, there is a mention of when a producer or product was established, perhaps a word about the founder or a brief explanation of a curious-sounding brand name.

The book is laced with historical anecdotes, a thousand cocktail recipes, essays on topics from the Guinness dynasty to the principles of brewing, from the discovery of distilling to the history of excise duty - and illustrated with hundreds of drink labels from all around the world.

The Wordsworth Dictionary of Drink is a convivial companion to that most pleasurable of pastimes - intelligent drinking.