by Mark Bailey
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1892–1982. Playwright, journalist, novelist, illustrator, and short-story writer. Openly gay, Barnes was a key figure in 1920s and 1930s bohemian Paris. Her second novel, Nightwood, with an introduction by T. S. Eliot, was noted both for its structure and candid portrayal of lesbianism. The book is considered Barnes’s masterpiece.
FRENCH 75
Popular in Paris between the wars, the French 75 was named after the World War I French-made 75mm howitzer. These were the years Barnes was living and drinking on the Left Bank and, from all accounts, a real pistol herself.
2 oz. gin
¾ oz. lemon juice
¾ oz. simple syrup
Top with champagne
Lemon twist
Pour gin, lemon, and simple syrup into a cocktail shaker filled with ice cubes. Shake well. Strain into a Collins glass filled with ice cubes. Top with champagne. Garnish with lemon twist. Often cognac is used instead of gin.
From Nightwood, 1937
“SHE BEGAN RUNNING AFTER ME. I kept on walking. I was cold, and I was not miserable any more. She caught me by the shoulder and went against me, grinning. She stumbled and I held her, and she said, seeing a poor wretched beggar of a whore, ‘Give her some money, all of it!’ She threw the francs into the street and bent down over the filthy baggage and began stroking her hair, gray with the dust of years, saying, ‘They are all God-forsaken, and you most of all, because they don’t want you to have your happiness. They don’t want you to drink. Well, here, drink! I give you money and permission.’”
Robert Benchley
“Drinking makes such fools of people, and people are such fools to begin with, that it’s compounding a felony.”
Initially a supporter of Prohibition, Benchley did not have his first drink until he was thirty-one. This was at Tony Soma’s, in the company of Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, and Robert Sherwood. Decades (and countless drinks) later, Benchley and Fitzgerald found themselves together one afternoon at Benchley’s bungalow in Hollywood. Checking his watch, Benchley noticed that it was five o’clock and that the “small wagon” he was then on allowed for drinks after five. He insisted on stirring up a pitcher of cocktails. Fitzgerald, who at the time was on the wagon completely, tried to talk Benchley out of it. “Don’t you know drinking is slow death?” said Fitzgerald. To which, Benchley took a sip and replied, “So who’s in a hurry?”
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1889–1945. Drama critic, humorist, newspaper columnist, and actor. A founding member of the Algonquin Round Table, Benchley was drama critic for The New Yorker for more than ten years. He wrote and acted in forty-six short films, including the Academy Award–winner How to Sleep.
ORANGE BLOSSOM
The Orange Blossom was the first cocktail Benchley ever tasted. Basically a Screwdriver with gin, the drink was a favorite long before vodka was king. There is a story of Zelda Fitzgerald drinking a thermos of Blossoms and getting lost on a golf course in Great Neck, but then there are a lot of stories about Zelda.
2 oz. gin
1½ oz. fresh orange juice
¼ oz. simple syrup
Orange wheel
Pour all ingredients into a cocktail shaker filled with ice cubes. Shake well. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with orange wheel.
From “Cocktail Hour,” 1938
I MUST, MERELY AS A PASSER-BY, ASK LADIES who run tea-rooms not to put signs reading “Cocktail Hour” in the windows of their tea-shops at two o’clock in the afternoon. Two P.M. is not “cocktail hour,” no matter how you look at it. The very suggestion is terrifying.
How would you like to be walking along a perfectly normal street, with the hot sun beating down on your new straw hat and a rather heavy corned-beef-hash-with-poached-egg from luncheon keeping step with you, and suddenly to look up and see, pasted on the window of a tea-shop, a sign reading “Cocktail Hour”? I am just putting the question to you as man to man.
If two P.M. is “cocktail hour” in a tea-shop, what do you suppose four-thirty P.M. is? No wonder those shops close early. By nine they would be a shambles.
John Berryman
“When not knitting or drinking, I often waste my time.”
After drinking copious amounts of alcohol, Berryman would be seized by the desire to recite his work. Often this meant late-night phone calls to anyone who would listen, sometimes even his students. In the South of France one time, after an all-night bender, he had difficulty finding an audience. He wished to recite the “Bradstreet” poem, his master-work. As it was five o’clock on Sunday morning, he had to settle for a French baker who’d just come to work. It was quite a recital—the sun rising, the bread rising, and Berryman nearing collapse. Unfortunately, the baker did not understand English.
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1914–1972. Poet. One of the founders of the confessional school of poetry. The Dream Songs collection is considered Berryman’s most important work. The first volume, 77 Dream Songs, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize; the second, His Toy, His Dream, His Rest, won the National Book Award.
BRONX COCKTAIL
The Bronx Cocktail was invented at the Waldorf Astoria by a bartender just returning from the recently opened Bronx Zoo. Apparently, he felt there was little difference between his bar and the zoo. Given the stories about Berryman, an avid gin drinker, it is easy to understand why. Too many Bronx Cocktails can turn anyone into a wild animal.
2 oz. gin
½ oz. dry vermouth
½ oz. sweet vermouth
1 oz. fresh orange juice
Pour all ingredients into a cocktail shaker filled with ice cubes. Shake well. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
For a sweeter version, omit the dry vermouth and increase the sweet vermouth to 1 ounce. And if you add a dash of Angostura bitters, the cocktail becomes an Income Tax Cocktail.
From “Dream Song 96,” 1969
Under the table, no. That last was stunning,
that flagon had breasts. Some men grow down cursed.
Why drink so, two days running?
two months, O seasons, years, two decades running?
I answer (smiles) my question on the cuff:
Man, I been thirsty.
Charles Bukowski
“Drinking is a form of suicide where you’re allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day.”
One of the few writers who is perhaps as famous for his drinking as his writing, Bukowski was a puking, pissing, fighting, screwing, fall-down drunk. It’s been said he could drink thirty beers in one sitting and that he could write thirty poems a week too. There were years when he’d arrive at bars just as they were opening—five-thirty, six in the morning—and leave at closing time. The consummate barfly, Bukowski would sit on his barstool, watching. Sometimes brawling, sometimes spieling, but always writing and always drinking.
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1920–1994. Poet, novelist, and short-story writer. With over fifty books that centered around drinking, gambling, and women, Bukowski established a strong cult following. His screenplay for the film Barfly was based in part on his life.
BOILERMAKER
When it comes to a no-frills beer and whiskey man, you can’t get more bare-knuckles than Bukowski. The Boilermaker is quick, reliable, and easy on the bartender. Your stomach does the mixing.
2 oz. bourbon, rye, or blended whiskey
8 oz. lager
Pour the whiskey into a shot glass. Pour the lager into a beer mug. Shoot back the whiskey straight and then drink the beer as chaser.
For those who like a little “frill,” you can drop the entire shot glass into the beer mug and drink together.
From Hollywood, 1989
THAT BAR CAME BACK TO ME. I remembered how you could smell the urinal from wherever you sat. You needed a drink right off to counteract that. And before you went back to that urinal you needed 4 or 5. And the people of that bar, their bodies and faces and voices came back to me. I was there again
. I saw the draft beer again in that thin glass flared at the top, the white foam looking at you, bubbling just a bit. The beer was green and after the first gulp, about a fourth of the glass, you inhaled, held your breath, and you were started. The morning bartender was a good man.
Truman Capote
“In this profession it’s a long walk between drinks.”
Capote’s life was very much his own strange cocktail of celebrities, artists, and socialites. While writing the script for Beat the Devil, on location in Italy with director John Huston and Humphrey Bogart, he was known for his excessiveness. Capote stayed at the Hotel Palumbo in Ravello, with no electricity, no heat, and everybody “half-drunk all day and dead-drunk all night.” Bogart nicknamed him “Caposy,” and wrote to his wife, Lauren Bacall, “At first you can’t believe him, he’s so odd, and then you want to carry him around with you always.” In the lobby, Capote amazingly beat Bogart in an arm-wrestling match, and then in a full-out wrestle, tripped him, fracturing Bogart’s elbow and delaying the shoot.
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1924–1984. Novelist, short-story writer, playwright, and screenwriter. Capote’s first novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms, controversial because of its depiction of homosexuality, brought him wide recognition. The Grass Harp and his novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s, increased his fame. With In Cold Blood, perhaps the first “nonfiction novel,” Capote became an international star.
SCREWDRIVER
Capote called the Screwdriver, “My orange drink.” As for the cocktail’s real name, legend has it that an American oilman working in the Middle East found himself without a swizzle stick and used his screwdriver instead. Like the Orange Blossom, fresh squeezed orange juice is highly recommended.
2 oz. vodka
5 oz. fresh orange juice
Orange slice
Pour vodka and orange juice into a highball glass filled with ice cubes. Stir gently. Garnish with orange slice.
From “Master Misery,” 1949
SYLVIA DID NOT EVEN LOOK FOR A TAXI; she wanted to walk on in the rain with the man who had been a clown. “When I was a little girl I only liked clown dolls,” she told him. “My room at home was like a circus.”
“I’ve been other things besides a clown. I have sold insurance also.”
“Oh?” said Sylvia, disappointed. “And what do you do now?”
Oreilly chuckled and threw his ball especially high; after the catch his head still remained tilted upward.
“I watch the sky,” he said. “There I am with my suitcase traveling through the blue. It’s where you travel when you’ve got no place else to go. But what do I do on this planet? I have stolen, begged, and sold my dreams—all for purposes of whiskey. A man cannot travel in the blue without a bottle.”
Raymond Carver
“You never start out in life with the intention of becoming a bankrupt or an alcoholic.”
While teaching at the University of Iowa, Carver and John Cheever began drinking together. Soon, concerned students and teachers started having them over for dinner in an effort to make sure they ate. At the semester’s end, Carver and Cheever decided to throw a big party in repayment for all the hospitality. Invitations went out, a banquet hall was rented. Before the event, however, both writers were called out of town. They agreed to meet back in Iowa City the day of the party. Unfortunately, though not surprisingly, both got drunk and missed their planes. That night the guests arrived to find an empty room—no food, no drink, no Carver, no Cheever.
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1938–1988. Short-story writer and poet. Known for his minimalist style and his raw depictions of blue-collar life, Carver first gained acclaim with the short-story collection Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? He is considered a major force in revitalizing the short-story form.
BLOODY MARY
Believed to have been invented at Harry’s New York Bar in Paris in the 1920s, the Bloody Mary came over to the States after Prohibition via bartender Fernand “Pete” Petoit. Pete made the drink with gin and served it under the name Red Snapper. The perfect eye-opener, it is favored by those, like Carver, who knew from a hangover.
2 oz. vodka
½ oz. lemon juice
¼ oz. Worcestershire sauce
3 dashes Tabasco sauce
¼ tsp. grated horseradish
1 pinch cracked pepper
1 pinch salt
1 pinch celery salt
Top with tomato juice
Celery stalk
Lime wedge
Pour all ingredients (except garnish and tomato juice) into a highball glass. Fill with ice cubes. Top with tomato juice, and stir. Garnish with celery stalk and lime wedge. Feel free to adjust ingredients to taste, but remember—the horseradish is essential.
From “Gazebo,” 1986
DRINKING’S FUNNY. When I look back on it, all of our important decisions have been figured out when we were drinking. Even when we talked about having to cut back on our drinking, we’d be sitting at the kitchen table or out at the picnic table with a six-pack or whiskey. When we made up our minds to move down here and take this job as managers, we sat up a couple of nights drinking while we weighed the pros and cons.
I pour the last of the Teacher’s into our glasses and add cubes and a spill of water.
Raymond Chandler
“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.
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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.
From 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.”
John Cheever
“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 i
t 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.
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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.