One of the best books I've come across in the last year is Gary Regan's "The
Joy of Mixology". The recipes are only about a third of the book, that isn't
even the reason to buy the book. Gary has worked as a bartender for some 25
years around NYC and has a lot of good advice about the trade in general. He
also goes into a lot of the history of cocktails, discusses ingredients and a
lot of other useful knowledge. The recipe section isn't very big (only about
300 drinks) but for many of them there is a paragraph or more discussing that
drink in detail, maybe a tip about how to give it that extra "something".
There may be better books out there but I really took a lot out of this one.
I think it would be much better than simply another recipe book (which most
tenders don't really need after they've been working for a while).