cover image Jiggelo: Inventive Gelatin Shots for Creative Imbibers

Jiggelo: Inventive Gelatin Shots for Creative Imbibers

Mary Breidenbach, Barrett J. Calhoon, Sharon L. Calhoon. Ten Speed Press, $12.95 (89pp) ISBN 978-1-58008-596-0

Calling them""Jello shots"" would probably be a trademark infringement, so the Indianapolis-based collective of graphic designers and writers behind this book calls their gelatin cocktails""Jiggelos."" Beginning with a section of""Jiggelology"" that lays out needed materials and basic cooking techniques, the authors offer more than 50 often ingenious and sometimes fancy jiggelos. Chocolate, peanut butter, chopped nuts, Tabasco sauce, Twinkies and cooking spray all make appearances, as does practically every kind of hard liquor one can imagine. In case readers don't know when they ought to serve their jiggelos, a whole chapter contains recipes designed to celebrate (or buffer) the challenges of finding a job, a partner or even a good internet service provider. A trove of vintage photos that try to evoke 1930s-to-1960s liquor chics is matched by playful layout and lots of brightly colored graphics. Quoting Woody Allen and then describing him as a""neurotic New York writer on the edge of eye-wear fashion trends"" may reveal the limits of the authorial collective's humor, but no one will doubt the efficacy of their recipes.