Celebrate Pride all year long with these books and bottles from LGBTQ+ authors, producers, and allies. Whether you’re looking for a book that reflects your own experience or want to explore escapades that differ from yours, these stories are diverse in culture, gender, and sexual orientation, touching upon more than just romance, instead focusing on acceptance, finding your truth, and shedding the expectations of others. In a similar vein, the hooch we’ve paired with these books are produced by people who are a part of the queer community or, in Absolut Vodka’s case, an ally to the LGBTQ+ movement since the ‘80s. Happy Pride🏳‍🌈!

Bugsy & Other Stories by Rafael Frumkin
Absolut Vodka Cran-Grape Cocktail

A deliciously entertaining collection of five genre-defying stories that range from downright hilarious to brilliantly unhinged, they celebrate a wide variety of human experiences. In the title story, a queer young adult with bipolar disorder drops out of college in a fog of depression, aimlessly drifting between maintaining their job at a fast food restaurant and dodging their mom’s texts. But when they fall in with a group of sex workers starring in BDSM films, they find radical freedom, love, and community. In other stories, we meet a psychiatrist whose meticulously-maintained life is upended by an Alex Trebek-like voice in his head, an e-girl celebrity who is being courted by a delusional fan, a young boy on the spectrum at odds with a neurotypical world determined to “cure” him, and an elderly woman whose consciousness is being transformed by her oncoming death. Sip on this cocktail made with premium vodka from Absolut with real cranberry-grape juice from Ocean Spray®, crisp sparkling water and other natural flavors.

But How Are You, Really by Ella Dawson
Social Hour Cocktails Black Pepper Paloma

Charlotte Thorne, a burned-out bisexual, does not want to go back to Hein University for her five-year college reunion. But when her demanding boss, tech journalist Roger Ludermore, is invited to give the commencement address at this year’s graduation—which falls on the same weekend as her five-year reunion—Charlotte has no choice but to return to campus. The minute she steps foot on Hein property, the past comes crawling back in its glory and cringe: disco parties at the LGBTQIA+ program house, sleeping in a twin XL bed, and her chemistry with Reece Krueger, the hockey player she rebounded with after a traumatic breakup. Suddenly the weekend Charlotte has dreaded for months feels like an opportunity to go back in time. Relive your glory days with this spicy riff on the traditional Paloma, drawing on the complex heat of black pepper and partnering it with an herbaceous blanco tequila, sparkling pink grapefruit soda, citrusy lime zest, and just a bit of salt.

How We Named The Stars by Andrés N. Ordorica
Future Gin

When Daniel de La Luna arrives as a scholarship student at an elite East Coast university, he bears the weight of his family’s hopes and dreams, and the burden of sharing his late uncle’s name. Daniel flounders at first—but then Sam, his roommate, changes everything. As their relationship evolves from brotherly banter to something more intimate, Daniel soon finds himself in love with a man who helps him see himself in a new light. But just as their relationship takes flight, Daniel is pulled away, first by Sam’s hesitation and then by a brutal turn of events that changes Daniel’s life forever. As he grapples with profound loss, Daniel finds himself in his family’s ancestral homeland in México for the summer, finding joy in this setting even as he struggles to come to terms with what’s happened and faces a host of new questions: How does the person he is connect with this place his family comes from? How is his own story connected to his late uncle’s? And how might he reconcile the many parts of himself as he learns to move forward? Look to the future with this delightful gin distilled with citrus and gorgeous botanicals including coriander, cassia, angelica, fennel, orris root, grains of paradise, honeysuckle, elderflower, and black pepper.

This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel
Anytime Spirits Herby Lime Fizz

When Rosie and Penn and their four boys welcome the newest member of their family, no one is surprised it’s another baby boy. But at least their large, loving, chaotic family knows what to expect. But Claude is not like his brothers. One day he puts on a dress and refuses to take it off. He wants to bring a purse to kindergarten. He wants hair long enough to sit on. When he grows up, Claude says, he wants to be a girl. Rosie and Penn aren’t panicked at first. Kids go through phases, after all, and make-believe is fun. But soon the entire family is keeping Claude’s secret. Until one day it explodes. Everything is constantly changing but this herbaceous spritz will always be refreshing! Made from regenerative organic vodka with key lime, thyme, sage, juniper, mint, and dill.

Untamed by Glennon Doyle
Anytime Spirits Farmhouse Vodka

For many years, Glennon Doyle denied her own discontent. Then, while speaking at a conference, she looked at a woman across the room and fell instantly in love. Three words flooded her mind: There She Is. At first, Glennon assumed these words came to her from on high. But she soon realized they had come to her from within. This was her own voice—the one she had buried beneath decades of numbing addictions, cultural conditioning, and institutional allegiances. This was the voice of the girl she had been before the world told her who to be. Glennon decided to quit abandoning herself and to instead abandon the world’s expectations of her. She quit being good so she could be free. She quit pleasing and started living. Soft, ultra smooth, and terroir driven, this vodka meets the highest standards of environmental protection.