Compendium with a Twist

You can learn something very specific about someone by the drink they don’t order. If there’s a spirit they avoid as they scan the cocktail menu, it’s a good bet that it was their first big alcoholic mistake. An early dalliance with gin, for instance, may well keep martinis potato-based for the rest of one’s days.

For Peter Sellers, the poison was rye. The Toronto bookseller and his co-compiler of this slender volume, Rob Milling, explain their origin story thusly: “In a quest to expand our scientific knowledge, we took a bottle of Rob’s father’s Adams Antique rye and a large bottle of Coke to mix it with.” They subsequently discovered what it was to “awake crapulous.” As a result, Sellers now avoids that particular type of whisky.

The less predictable but more convivial outcome of their youthful debauchery was an extended search for the best hangover descriptions from literature and beyond. They brought their wry (not rye) collection to...