(FORTUNE Magazine) – Every fan of booze suffers, now and then, this dilemma: One's favorite spirit grows boring. So off to the liquor store you go, in search of something new. Do you buy another fifth of Old Tedious, or do you blow $30 or $40 on something entirely beyond your ken--Cynar artichoke aperitif, let's say, or a clear distillate from Mexico that looks like an exhibit from the school of internal medicine at Juarez (worm in bottle)?

Suffer indecision no longer! Kindred Spirits, by F. Paul Pacult (Hyperion, $16.95), describes and rates more than 1,200 spirituous beverages, ranging from familiar high-octane whiskeys to delicate Madeiras and obscure aperitifs.

Replete with welcome surprises, the book confers some of its highest ratings on spirits unfamiliar. Among the better bourbons, for example, are two that come not from Kentucky but from the A.H. Hirsch distillery in Pennsylvania. Need a new gin with a distinguished pedigree? Pacult rates Corney & Barrow London Dry one of the finest. A single-malt Scotch? Logmorn Speyside, Springbank Campbeltown, and Clynelish Northern Highlands are three that get top marks.

The guide's appeal rests not just on its impressive scope but also on Pacult's description of flavors and aromas. Who'd be daring enough to buy "Nostalgie" Black Walnut Liqueur? You might, after reading this: "Beautiful, deep-chestnut/oloroso-sherry color; the nose is multilayered [with] scintillating scents of egg cream, nutmeg, and coffee beans underneath the walnut surface; the flavor at entry smacks of orange, chocolate, pineapple, and guava before accelerating into a serious but crisp walnut-tasting overdrive. Makes other nut-based liqueurs seem feeble, flabby; this [is] classic, concentrated nectar."

Yet it's his pans that offer some of the best fun: Asbach Uralt brandy from Germany is "a horror show in the mouth." Taylor Dry Sherry from upstate New York gives off "a seriously disturbing airplane-glue aroma [mixed with] grade Z butterscotch, which calls to mind a 'before' sample from a Hudson River filtration plant." And Cynar, the artichoke aperitif? "What meager amounts of aroma are there have cooked-vegetable, wet fabric, and steely/metallic qualities that have little or nothing to do with artichoke...I despised the taste." Well, that's $12.99 saved.

--Alan Farnham