Hemingway & Bailey's Bartending Guide to Great American Writers Read Online Free PDF Page A

and Zelda arrived in their pajamas. Zelda soon enough removed hers and danced naked. Did anyone have to smell their breath to know?
    ..........
    1896–1940. Novelist and short-story writer. With his first novel,
This Side of Paradise,
Fitzgerald became the spokesman for the Jazz Age.
The Beautiful and the Damned
came next, followed by Fitzgerald’s masterpiece,
The Great Gatsby,
considered by many the finest American novel of the twentieth century.
Tender Is the Night
was published nine years later. Fitzgerald’s last novel,
The Last Tycoon,
was published posthumously.
    GIN RICKEY
    It is easy to imagine a warm summer evening out on the shore of Long Island—say a party at Gatsby’s house, the bartenders serving up light, refreshing Gin Rickeys as the jazz band swings. In the 1920s and ’30s there were any number of Rickeys (scotch, rum, applejack), but gin is the one that endured. And besides, it was Fitzgerald’s favorite.
    2 oz. gin
    ¾ oz. lime juice
    Top with club soda
    Lime wheel
    Pour gin and lime juice into a chilled highball glass filled with ice cubes. Top with club soda, and stir gently. Garnish with lime wheel. Serve with two straws.
From
Tender Is the Night,
1933
    B Y ONE O’CLOCK THE BAR WAS JAMMED ; amidst the consequent mixture of voices the staff of waiters functioned, pinning down their clients to the facts of drink and money. . . .
    In the confusion Abe had lost his seat; now he stood gently swaying and talking to some of the people with whom he had involved himself. . . .
    Across from him the Dane and his companions had ordered luncheon. Abe did likewise but scarcely touched it. Afterwards, he just sat, happy to live in the past. The drink made past happy things contemporary with the present, as if they were still going on, contemporary even with the future as if they were about to happen again.

Dashiell Hammett

    “Three times I have been mistaken for a Prohibition agent, but never had any trouble clearing myself.”
    Hammett spent his later life in a famously passionate love affair with Lillian Hellman. Both heavy drinkers, their relationship was figuratively and literally on the rocks for much of thirty years. During one evening, drunk and arguing with Lillian Hellman, Hammett took the cigarette he was smoking and began to grind it out on his cheek. “What are you doing!” screamed Hellman. Hammett’s answer, “Keeping myself from doing it to you.”
    ..........
    1894–1961. Novelist and short-story writer. Drawing on his experiences as a Pinkerton, Hammett created tough heroes for hard-boiled fiction.
The Maltese Falcon,
his most famous novel, introduced the streetwise detective Sam Spade, portrayed on-screen by Humphrey Bogart. A great many of Hammett’s works were adapted to film.
    MARTINI
    “I was leaning against the bar in a speakeasy on Fifty-second Street, waiting for Nora,” so begins Hammett’s novel
The Thin Man.
The speakeasy was the “21” Club, and the characters, Nick and Nora, were based on Hammett and Lillian Hellman. More than likely, the Martinis they enjoyed were made wet like ours. During Prohibition, the bootleg gin was of such poor quality, they needed the vermouth to cover up the bad taste.
    2 oz. gin
    1 oz. dry vermouth
    Olives or lemon twist
    Pour gin and dry vermouth into a mixing glass filled with ice cubes. Stir well. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with olives or twist.
From
The Maltese Falcon,
1929
    “A H , M R . S PADE ,” he said with enthusiasm and held out a hand like a fat pink star.
    Spade took the hand and smiled and said: “How do you do, Mr. Gutman?”
    Holding Spade’s hand, the fat man turned beside him, put his other hand to Spade’s elbow, and guided him across a green rug to a green plush chair beside a table that held a siphon, some glasses and a bottle of Johnnie Walker whiskey on a tray, a box of cigars—Coronas del Ritz—two newspapers, and a small and plain yellow soapstone box.
    Spade sat in the green chair. The