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

Mojito. The drink was invented at La Bodeguita del Medio in Havana, Cuba, where Hemingway drank them. So did Brigitte Bardot, Nat King Cole, Jimmy Durante, Erroll Flynn, and countless others.
    6 fresh mint sprigs
    1 oz. lime juice
    ¾ oz. simple syrup
    2 oz. light rum
    Lime wedge
    Crush 5 mint sprigs into the bottom of a chilled highball glass. Pour in lime juice, simple syrup, and rum. Fill glass with crushed ice. Garnish with lime wedge and remaining mint sprig. Sometimes a splash of club soda is added.
From “The Three-Day Blow,” 1925
    “I’ M A LITTLE DRUNK NOW ,” Nick said.
    “You aren’t drunk,” Bill said. . . . Bill poured the glass half full of whiskey.
    “Put in your own water,” he said. “There’s just one more shot.”
    “Got any more?” Nick asked.
    “There’s plenty more, but Dad only likes me to drink what’s open.”
    “Sure,” said Nick.
    “He says opening bottles is what makes drunkards,” Bill explained.
    “That’s right,” said Nick. He was impressed. He had never thought of that before. He always thought it was solitary drinking that made drunkards.

Chester Himes

    “Lock up a white woman and a black man in an apartment in the United States with a bottle of whiskey, and what you’ll get is a violent, tragicomic story.”
    Newly arrived in Paris and thirsty from his travels, Himes and his friend Richard Wright were en route to a cocktail party when they were interrupted by a call from James Baldwin. Apparently, Baldwin, who had been publicly criticizing Wright’s work, now wanted to borrow money from him. It would be a famous showdown. At Café Deux Magots, the two authors went at each other while Himes went at the bottle. After hours at the table, drunk and bored, Himes finally wobbled off. Much more interested in a piss and a pillow, he left the two greatest living African American writers to work it out on their own.
    ..........
    1909–1984. Novelist. Considered on a par with Hammett and Chandler, Himes’s black detective series featuring Gravedigger Jones and Coffin Ed strongly influenced American crime writing. Largely unrecognized by American readers, he became a permanent expatriate based in Paris.
Cotton Comes to Harlem
is his most famous work.
    TOM COLLINS
    It may be strange for a southern writer in Paris to be drinking gin, but then Himes liked a Tom Collins. Essentially a Gin Fizz, it is a cool drink whoever and wherever you are.
    2 oz. gin
    ¾ oz. lemon juice
    ¾ oz. simple syrup
    Top with club soda
    Orange slice
    Maraschino cherry
    Pour gin, lemon juice, and simple syrup into a cocktail shaker filled with ice cubes. Shake briefly. Strain into a chilled Collins glass filled with ice cubes. Top with club soda and stir gently. Garnish with orange slice and cherry. Serve with two straws.
From
A Rage in Harlem,
1965
    “I’ M GOIN’ TO HELP YOU FIND YOUR GAL , B RUZZ ,” he whispered confidentially. “After all, you is my twin brother.”
    He took a small bottle from his gown and handed it to Jackson. “Have a little taste.”
    Jackson shook his head.
    “Go ahead and take a taste,” Goldy urged irritably. “If the dead ain’t already got your soul after all you done last night, you is saved. Take a good taste. We’re going out and look for that stud and your gal, and you is goin’ to need all the courage you can get.”

James Jones

    “It is a far, far better thing than we have ever done to be disciples of Bacchus rather than of Christ.”
    In Paris, Jones, James Baldwin, and William Styron would gather at Jones’s house and drink well into the night. On one particular evening, they decided to go out on the town. When the sun came up, Baldwin folded, but Jones and Styron kept drinking. Noon found the two writers in the Ritz Bar, still hard at it. By three o’clock, after almost twenty hours of drinking, they decided to return to Jones’s place. “We went into the house,” Styron recalled, “and the first thing I heard was a huge crash.”