I think I have just found the perfect summer reading for Nicola Sturgeon.

It's called The Power Of Positive Drinking by self-styled tequila queen and former Kenny Everett co-star Cleo Rocos. It kicks off with a brief government health warning on units – possibly obligatory these days – but soon gathers pace as a joyous celebration of booze.

It's not a guide to getting legless. "Unless you're having a limb removed without anaesthetic there's no point getting blind drunk," she writes. Rather, the aim of the book is to help you "ensure every drinking occasion snowballs into a glorious and triumphant event". I don't know about you, but for me not every encounter with alcohol has ended that way.

Aware of others in the same boat, Rocos has written what is basically a manual to study before partying. "A drunken swirling room and a hangover," she declares, sounding like matron, "are a reminder that you haven't read this book properly."

To say she has somehow banished the curse of the morning-after for ever may be stretching things, but Rocos likes to party hard and claims the last time she felt she'd been "shot in the head with no bullet hole" was a long time ago. The culprit that time was red wine. "I wasn't drunk, I'd only had a few glasses, but the next day I was not only unwell, I had that feeling you get of hating yourself."

There was one drink she used to avoid like the plague. "I hated tequila because I'd had that horrible experience most students have when you get not merely a hangover, but also a total poisoning of the system." However, about 10 years ago in Mexico she discovered the real McCoy of 100% pure agave tequila. She has since become the spirit's leading evangelist in the UK with her own brand, AquaRiva.

What she had been drinking in her student days was cheap 51% agave, bulked up with industrial sugarcane-based alcohol. "Drink badly," she writes, "and you'll get alcohol laden with chemicals, preservatives and sugar which cause wild mood swings, pile on excessive poundage and leave you with a dreadful hangover."

"Sugar is a massive enemy," she told me. "It's cheap and one of the most highly addictive ingredients. Low-quality food is stuffed with it. I feel if people are going to tax anything, sugar's the first place I'd look if I were the government."

Sadly, with many big brands the money you pay is often a carve-up between the taxman, the retailer and the marketing department. The production process and sourcing of ingredients comes way down the list of priorities.

The purity of the spirit also affects the way you feel the next day. Measure for measure, vodka will leave you less battered than single malt, and as she says "a bad whisky hangover is truly an act of evil". Her solution is to treat whisky with a lot of respect and plenty of water. The trouble with vodka (or the attraction for the sort of people who probably don't read this column) is that its strength is so easily disguised beneath a soft drink.

Rocos' final message is that we all carry a deep-set alarm to tell us when to stop drinking at parties; it's just a matter of tuning into it.

Old Vine Garnacha 2011

£5, Asda (14%)

This fruity Spaniard comes from Carinena, the country's second oldest designation of origin in the eastern Aragon. It smells of bramble jam, but you don't have to drink it with a spoon. It provides a mouthful of soft red fruit and a trace of sweet spices such as liquorice and cloves.

Diez Siglos Verdejo 2012

£6.99, Aitken Wines, Dundee and Reuben's Wine Store, Dunfermline (13%)

From the other side of Spain come this fresh, modern-style verdejo from the grape's heartland in Rueda. With an aroma of tangerines and cut grass, it has an almost syrupy texture which just manages to coat the tongue before the wine's zesty acidity kicks in.

Santa Digna Gewurztraminer 2012

Peter Green & Co, £8.95

Spanish producer Miguel Torres has been in Chile for 30-plus years and this is the latest vintage of a well-balanced gewurztraminer, with the grape's classic scent of jasmine and rose petals, with plenty of refreshingly clean citrus juice to balance the ripe peach-like fruit.