Ciderland wins André Simon Drinks Book Award 2008

Last night at the Goring Hotel, near Victoria Station in London, James Crowden won the 2008 André Simon Memorial Award for Drink Books with Ciderland (published by Birlinn, who are based in Edinburgh).

The winning moment: James Crowden and Peter Richards while organiser Kate Lander exits right

James Crowden was clearly delighted to have won and his great enthusiasm for the subject showed in his brief speech of thanks. Peter Richards, this year’s wine books’ assessor, described Ciderland as ‘bucolic’.

James Crowden's enthusiasm and passion was evident – he even wears a cidery waistcoat

The other three shortlisted books were: Iain Gately: Drink: a cultural history of alcohol, published by Gotham – Penguin, Charles Sullivan: Napa Wine: a history from mission days to present, published by Wine Appreciation Guild and Taylor Clark: Starbucked, published by Hodder & Stroughton.

There was a huge imbalance between the number of food books and drink books entered. Of a total of 124 entries only 13 were drink and 111 food titles. A very telling figure that vividly illustrates the paucity of drinks books now being published in the UK. Only Ciderland is published in the UK; the other three are published in the United States. Currently all the most interesting wine books are coming from the US. The UK publishers seem to have given up and the few books being published are in tried and tested formats.

Amongst the 13 drink books there were examples that failed to inspire – ‘not bringing the subject alive’. However, Peter did applaud the diversity of subject. There was even a book on the vine root stocks of Texas. I wonder why this wasn’t shortlisted.

To Peter’s credit he chose to try to inspire the UK book trade to publish drink books rather than give them a good kicking. He spoke of the pleasure that drinks of all kinds give – particularly in these hard and gloomy economic times.

Peter Richards tries to inspire UK publishers

Peter Brears: Cooking and dining in Medieval England (Prospect Books) won the Food category with Michel Roux's Pastry (Quadrille) given a special prize.

I'm aware that Ciderland probably has no connection whatsoever with the Loire as it concentrates on ciders made in the UK's West Country. (In Normandy they are compelled to drink cider because they can't get Chenin Blanc to ripen that far north.) However, the André Simon Awards are important and the chances of any UK publisher being brave enough to publish a book about Loire wines are considerably slimmer than seeing a squadron of flying pigs circling over the vineyards of Jasnières.