Read Hemingway & Bailey's Bartending Guide to Great American Writers Online
Authors: Mark Bailey,Edward Hemingway
Hemingway & Bailey's Bartending Guide to Great American Writers (5 page)
“I think a man ought to get drunk at least twice a year just on principle.”
Paramount Studios put the movie
The Blue Dahlia
into production before Chandler had written a line of the script. Unfortunately, two weeks into shooting, he had yet to find an ending and was suffering from writer’s block. He told his producer, John Houseman, that although he was a recovering alcoholic and had been sober for some time, he could only finish the script if he relapsed completely. Houseman arranged for Paramount to place six secretaries at Chandler’s house around the clock. A doctor was hired to give him vitamin shots, as he rarely ate when drinking. Limousines waited outside, ready to run pages at a moment’s notice. In the end he produced one of his best original scripts, and the story of his self-sacrifice became Hollywood legend.
..........
1888–1959. Novelist, short-story writer, and screenwriter. Most famous for his seven novels featuring the detective Philip Marlowe. Chandler’s best-known screenplays include
Double Indemnity, The Blue Dahlia,
and
Strangers on a Train.
He is considered Dashiell Hammett’s principal successor.
GIMLET
It wasn’t until Chandler’s detective Philip Marlowe introduced the Gimlet in
The Long Goodbye
that the cocktail finally caught on in America. Surprisingly, the recipe did not use fresh lime juice. As Chandler wrote, “A real Gimlet is half gin and half Rose’s Lime Juice and nothing else. It beats martinis hollow.”
2 oz. gin
1 oz. Rose’s Lime Juice
Lime wedge
Pour gin and lime juice into a mixing glass filled with ice cubes. Stir well. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with lime wedge.
The Gimlet can also be served on the rocks in an Old-Fashioned glass.
The Long Goodbye,
1953
“I
LIKE BARS JUST AFTER THEY OPEN
for the evening. When the air inside is still cool and clean and everything is shiny and the barkeep is giving himself that last look in the mirror to see if his tie is straight and his hair is smooth. I like the neat bottles on the bar back and the lovely shining glasses and the anticipation. I like to watch the man mix the first one of the evening and put it down on a crisp mat and put the little folded napkin beside it. I like to taste it slowly. The first quiet drink of the evening in a quiet bar—that’s wonderful.
I agreed with him.
“Alcohol is like love,” he said. “The first kiss is magic, the second is intimate, the third is routine. After that you take the girl’s clothes off.”
“I love parties excessively. That’s the reason I don’t go to them.”
When he was teaching at Boston University, Cheever found it difficult to make it through the day without a drink. More often than not, he would be rescued by fellow faculty member and tippler Anne Sexton. Sexton would spike Cheever’s coffee with the whiskey she kept hidden in her purse. Such secretive drinking was not unfamiliar to Cheever, who kept liquor hidden all over his house, including a bottle behind his collection of Henry James.
..........
1912–1982. Short-story writer and novelist. A frequent contributor to
The New Yorker,
he offered a humorous though dark vision of suburban American life. His first novel,
The Wapshot Chronicles,
won the National Book Award, and his collection
The Stories of John Cheever
was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
RUSTY NAIL
A mellow cocktail with a lovely rusty color, the Rusty Nail was invented in the 1960s. Touted by Hugh Hefner’s
Playboy
magazine and sipped in the suburbs, it was considered a swinger’s drink—how fitting for Cheever.
2 oz. scotch
1 oz. Drambuie
Pour scotch and Drambuie into an Old-Fashioned glass filled with ice cubes. Stir gently.
“W
E DROVE BACK TO
N
EW
Y
ORK
after the ceremony and your father stopped along the way at a bootlegger’s and bought a case of Scotch. It was a Saturday afternoon and there was a football game and a lot of traffic outside Princeton. We had that French-Canadian chauffeur, and his driving had always made me nervous. I spoke to Ralph about it and he said I was a fool, and five minutes later the car was upside down. I was thrown out of the open window into a stony field, and the first thing your father did was to look into the luggage compartment to see what had happened to the Scotch. There I was, bleeding to death, and he was counting bottles.”
“With a beer mug beside you, it’s now whatever o’clock it is, and all’s (for the prolonged moment) well.”
Cozzens typically drank a double scotch with lunch, two doubles before dinner (poured with a heavy hand), and four beers afterward. At age sixty-seven, he was informed by his doctor that his liver was enlarged and he needed to go on the wagon. Cozzens complied, abstaining from all alcohol, even his much beloved beer. Whatever benefits this had for Cozzens’s health (he lived another seven years), it unfortunately came at great expense to his work. Without drink, his creativity all but dried up and he soon stopped writing altogether.
..........
1903–1978. Novelist and short-story writer. Cozzens wrote about upper-middle-class professionals whose ideals are challenged. He first gained attention when his novella
S.S. San Pedro
was awarded the Scribner’s Prize. For his short story “Total Stranger” he won an O. Henry Award. His novel
Guard of Honor
was awarded the Pulitzer.
HALF AND HALF
The Half and Half is perhaps better known as a Black and Tan. The nickname is derived not just from the colors, but from the regiment of British soldiers stationed in Ireland after World War I. Called the Black and Tans, their mismatched uniforms resembled the colors of the drink. Ironically, while the soldiers were a notoriously rough lot, the Half and Half is rather smooth. An easy combination of bitter and mild, you’ll find it a pleasant way to develop a taste for stout.
8 oz. chilled lager
8 oz. chilled stout
Pour lager into a chilled pint glass. Pour stout over the back of a bar spoon to help it float over the “tan.” Sometimes ale is used instead of lager.
Ask Me Tomorrow,
1940
W
HEN HE CAME BACK
he carried a stack of paper cups, a bottle of mineral water with the cork drawn, and a flask of brandy. “It’s probably poison,” he said, drawing the door closed and setting these things on the window ledge, “but it’s bound to be warm.” He separated two cups, poured an inch of brandy into one and filled the other with mineral water. “Just take a deep breath and swallow that,” he said, holding them out to her. “You’ll think it’s summer.”
“That’s much too much,” Miss Robertson said. Her fingers touched his as she took the cups. “You’re the one who needs it,” she said. “Your hands are like ice.”
Shivering, Francis said, “And how!” He poured brandy in another cup and tasted it. “It’s dreadful,” he said truthfully, and swallowed it.
“I’ve worn out several kidneys and several bladders already on bootleg rum, but I seem always ready to risk another.”
A drunk, of the complete and utterly mad variety, Crane found himself late one night drinking alone at Café Select in Paris. Loaded to the gills but not with money, Crane realized he could not cover the tab. He tried to argue his way out. Other Americans in the café offered to pay the bill, but the ill-tempered owner refused. An eager though unskilled fighter, Crane decided to punch a waiter, and then another, and then a policeman. Soon more police arrived and Crane was clubbed senseless. He was dragged feet first to the station. After a week in a rat-infested cell, Crane was fined eight hundred francs and released. He left the country shortly thereafter.
..........
1899–1932. Poet. Crane’s first collection,
White Buildings,
established him within the avant-garde community. His epic poem,
The Bridge,
brought wider recognition as well as a Guggenheim Fellowship.
The Broken Tower
was Crane’s last and perhaps finest work.