The Hemingway Cookbook

by Craig Boreth

  Alcohol served him well in his early years. He spoke enthusiastically of its idea-changing properties and actively embraced the culture of alcohol while living in Paris. In an August 1922 dispatch to the Toronto Star weekly young Hemingway captured the hedonistic lure of early-evening Paris in a discourse on apéritifs:

  Apéritifs, or appetizers, are those tall, bright red or yellow drinks that are poured from two or three bottles by hurried waiters during the hour before lunch and the hour before dinner, when all Paris gathers at the cafés to poison themselves into a cheerful pre-eating glow.1

  Later in his life, alcohol became the “giant killer,” helping him fight off his anxieties and bouts with severe depression. He needed it to get to sleep and to wake up. Eventually, as with Fitzgerald and Faulkner, it eroded his talent and certainly contributed to his death.

  Why, then, has Hemingway remained the consummate “drinking writer,” inspiring a carefree indulgence for countless fans and readers? Because, for much of his life, he truly enjoyed drinking, and it did help him to maintain his craft. The eventual devastation notwithstanding, the image of the smiling, boisterous Hemingway, drink in hand and surrounded by friends, is one of the lasting images he left behind. If we live in the moment, get caught up in his generosity, and succumb to the charge he bestowed on a room upon entering, we may with honor and respect raise a glass to Ernest Hemingway and toast the good times.

  To do so, we must familiarize ourselves with the Hemingway bar. Ernest was fastidious in his habit, indulging in his drinks of choice with the same dedication to detail that he had for his writing. While that may help us to understand why he wrote so much about drinking and drinkers, it in no way detracts from the magic he created when doing so. This may hint at another reason why the deleterious effects of drinking are often overlooked in Hemingway’s case: he made it sound like so damned much fun.

  Absinthe

  It took the place of the evening papers, of all the old evenings in cafés, of all chestnut trees that would be in bloom now in this month, of the great slow horses of the outer boulevards, of book shops, of kiosques, and of galleries, of the Pare Montsouris, of the Stade Buffalo, and of the Butte Chaumont, of the Guaranty Trust Company and the He de la Cité, of Foyot’s old hotel, and of being able to read and relax in the evening; of all the things he had enjoyed and forgotten and that came back to him when he tasted that opaque, bitter, tongue-numbing, brain-warming, stomach-warming, idea-changing liquid alchemy.2

  It’s a very strange thing,” he said. “This drink tastes exactly like remorse. It has the true taste of it and yet it takes it away.”3

  Absinthe is an emerald-green, very bitter liquor infused with herbs, primarily anise and wormwood. First distilled in the mountains of Switzerland, absinthe was later brought to fabulous popularity by the Frenchman Henri-Louis Pernod. Originally considered a stimulant to creativity, it was later believed that prolonged use of wormwood was harmful to the nervous system, producing a syndrome know as absinthism. Absinthe was banned throughout most Western countries between 1912 and 1915, although Spain continued to allow its use for some time thereafter.

  Hemingway first discovered absinthe on his initial trips to Spain and the bullfights in the early 1920s. Absinthe was banned in France before he arrived, or else he would certainly have discovered it much earlier. Despite the ban, Hemingway continued to drink absinthe (and Pernod, the brand name of the imitation absinthe, produced without wormwood) well into the 1930s. In Death in the Afternoon, he explained, with tongue firmly in cheek, why he has decided to give up bullfighting (an endeavor that, in fact, he had never begun): “… it became increasingly harder as I grew older to enter the ring happily except after drinking three or four absinthes which, while they inflamed my courage, slightly distorted my reflexes.”4

  In 1935, Hemingway submitted an absinthe recipe of his own invention to a collection of celebrity cocktails, naming the drink after his famous book about bullfighting. Hemingway suggests slowly drinking three to five of these. If you're a nineteen-year-old bullfighter, maybe. Otherwise, I'd recommend against it.

  Death in the Afternoon

  1 SERVING

  2½ ounces absinthe

  Champagne, chilled

  Pour absinthe into a Champagne flute. Top with Champagne.

  While absinthe is now legal in the United States, that same mystique surrounding it expressed by Robert Jordan in For Whom the Bell Tolls remains: “It’s supposed to rot your brain out but I don't believe it. It only changes the ideas.”5 For those not willing to risk the brain-rot, you may indulge in other anise-flavored spirits without wormwood, such as Pernod or Ricard. Of course, if you do so you will likely end up waiting in vain for “the feeling that makes [you] want to shimmy rapidly up the side of the Eiffel Tower.”6

  Pernod

  Pernod is a greenish imitation absinthe. When you add water it turns milky. It tastes like licorice and it has a good uplift, but it drops you just as far. We sat and drank it, and the girl looked sullen.7

  1 SERVING

  1½ ounces Pernod

  1 sugar cube

  Drip glass

  Drip spoon

  Pour Pernod into the drip glass or an old-fashioned glass. Place the drip spoon over the glass and the sugar cube on the spoon. Slowly pour cold water over the spoon to fill. If you do not have a drip spoon, place the sugar in a teaspoon and slowly pour the water over the sugar and allow it to run into the glass. Be careful to pour the water into the Pernod very slowly, otherwise it will be “flat and worthless.”8

  Armagnac and Perrier

  Armagnac is a full-bodied and potent brandy produced in southwest France bordering on France’s Basque country. The Armagnac’s brandy is a reflection of its swarthy, hot-blooded people. For Hemingway, Armagnac has great diversity of use, from quelling arguments among guerrillas advancing toward occupied Paris to igniting woodcock in flambé. For David and Catherine Bourne, honeymooning in Mediterranean France in The Garden of Eden, Armagnac and Perrier satisfies their taste for something real:

  The waiter brought the Armagnac and the young man told him to bring a cold bottle of Perrier water instead of the syphon. The waiter poured two large Armagnacs and the young man put ice in the big glasses and poured in the Perrier.

  “This will fix us,” he said. “It’s a hell of a thing to drink before lunch though.”

  The girl took a long sip. “It’s good,” she said. “It has a fresh clean healthy ugly taste.” She took another long sip. “I can really feel it. Can you?”

  “Yes,” he said and took a deep breath. “I can feel it.”

  She drank from the glass again and smiled and the laugh wrinkles came at the corner of her eyes. The cold Perrier had made the heavy brandy alive.9

  1 SERVING

  2–4 ounces Armagnac

  Perrier to fill

  Pour the brandy into a highball glass over ice cubes and fill with Perrier. Stir.

  Hemingway’s Bloody Marys

  Hemingway’s taste for Bloody Marys was probably cultivated in the 1920s at Harry’s New York Bar in Paris, allegedly the birthplace of the drink. Twenty years later he claimed to have introduced the drink to Hong Kong, which “did more than any other single factor except perhaps the Japanese Army to precipitate the Fall of that Crown Colony.”10 In 1947, Ernest shared his own Bloody Mary recipe with friend Bernard Peyton.

  Hemingway’s recipe makes a full pitcher, as he insisted that “any smaller amount is worthless.”11 You will note that when the recipe calls for stirring, Hemingway deliberately spelled stir with two r’s. As you create the drink, catching its sweet and spicy aroma and eagerly awaiting its taste, you’ll want to “stirr” it also.

  2 SERVINGS

  2 cups Russian vodka

  2 cups chilled tomato juice

  1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

  1 jigger fresh lime juice

  Pinch of celery salt

  Pinch of cayenne pepper, or to taste

  Pinch of
black pepper, or to taste

  Place as large a lump of ice as will fit in a large pitcher. The single piece of ice is important, as it keeps the drink very cold while not watering it down. If you are using ice cubes, be sure that the vodka and tomato juice are very cold, and only add the ice to individual glasses when serving.

  Combine the vodka, tomato juice, and Worcestershire sauce and stirr. Add the lime juice and stirr again. Add the seasonings, keep stirring, and taste. If it is too strong, add more tomato juice, if it “lacks authority,” add vodka. Hemingway recommends adding more Worcestershire sauce to avoid a bad hangover, as well as adding a few drops of Mexican hot sauce to taste.

  Campari and Gordons Gin

  He heard her coming up the stairs and noticed the difference in her tread when she was carrying two glasses and when she had walked down bare-handed. He heard the rain on the windowpane and he smelled the beech logs burning in the fireplace. As she came into the room he put his hand out for the drink and closed his hand on it and felt her touch the glass with her own.

  “It’s our drink for out here,” she said. “Campari and Gordon’s with ice.”

  “I’m certainly glad you’re not a girl who would say on the rocks.’”12

  Ernest was likely first introduced to Campari in Milan by the Italian gentleman with the great name and the fine manners (see Marsala, page 169). Campari, made in Milan by Fratelli Campari, is a deep red, bitter liqueur infused with herbs and orange peel.

  Gordon’s was Hemingway’s gin of choice. He specifically requested it for his martinis and twice has his characters in his fiction mention this brand of gin in their Campari and gin. In the story quoted above, a blind American writer and his wife drink their “drinks for out here” in Venice. In Across the River and into the Trees, when Colonel Cantwell arrives at a Venice bar, the bartender sends down, via dumbwaiter, for a Gordon’s gin and Campari before the Colonel even orders it. Could it be that this drink tastes of Venetian homecomings? It’s worth a shot.

  1 SERVING

  2 ounces Gordon’s gin

  1 ounce Campari

  Pour the gin and Campari over ice in an old-fashioned cocktail glass. Stir. Garnish with a twist of orange peel, if desired.

  Chambéry Cassis

  On this evening I was sitting at a table outside of the Lilas watching the light change on the trees and the buildings and the passage of the great slow horses of the outer boulevards. The door of the café opened behind me and to my right, and a man came out and walked to my table.13

  The man was Ford Madox Ford, a British writer who was editor of the transatlantic review in Paris, for which Ernest was an associate editor for some time. Ford had earlier published Hemingway’s “Indian Camp” at a time when popular magazines would never accept such a graphic story. He considered Ernest the best writer of his time. Of course, good deeds did not always exempt people from Hemingway’s biting, often vicious sense of satire. Hemingway laid into Ford in The Sun Also Rises as Braddocks, and later in A Moveable Feast.

  When Ford joins Ernest at the Closerie des Lilas, he orders a Chambéry Cassis, known commonly in France as rince cochon, or “pig rinse.” This is fitting for a man who Ernest described as “an ambulatory, well clothed, up-ended hogshead.”14 In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway warns his lady friend against befriending writers (himself in particular?). Unfortunately, it was a warning that Ford, and many others along the way, never heard or heeded.

  Chambéry Cassis is made with Chambéry vermouth, a very dry vermouth, and cassis, a sweet red liqueur made from black currants. Put ¾ ounce cassis in a glass with crushed ice and then fill with Chambéry vermouth.

  Citron Pressé with Whiskey (The Hemingway Whiskey Sour)

  Stopped by heavy rains en route from Lyon to Paris, Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald took refuge at a hotel in Châlon-sur-Saône. Once there, Hemingway attempted to stave off Scott’s hypochondria with his version of a whiskey sour.

  Citron pressé is a classic French aperitif, its components presented to the drinker to assemble to his or her own taste. Ernest and Scott’s drinks are served with the glasses of pressed lemon juice and ice accompanied by two double whiskeys and a bottle of Perrier. You may add sugar to taste, but Hemingway likely took his citron pressé sugar-free.

  2 SERVINGS, BUT KEEP THEM COMING

  2 lemons

  2 double whiskies

  1 bottle Perrier

  Sugar to taste (optional)

  Ice

  Cut the lemons in half. Squeeze the juice from each lemon and strain into two tall cocktail glasses. Add 1 double whiskey to each glass. Top with Perrier. Add sugar to taste if desired. Drop a few ice cubes into each glass. Stir and serve.

  Cuba Libre (Chasing a Straight Whiskey)

  The disparity between rich and poor in Depressionera Key West appears throughout To Have and Have Not. In the closing pages, as Harry Morgan’s blood-soaked boat is towed in from the Gulf, Hemingway turns his astute, satirical eye toward the yachts that are tied up at the pier. It is a moment of supreme tragedy. Earlier, the “haves” and “have-nots” met up at Freddy’s Bar, modeled on the original Sloppy Joe’s in Key West (see p. 117). A rich young woman, with “the face and build of a lady wrestler,”15 sized up Harry as he entered the bar, coyly asked her husband to buy him for her, and interrupted Harry’s conversation with Freddy.

  “Shut up, you whore,” Harry replied curtly and walked to the back room. When Harry returned to the bar the woman looked away from him to register disgust.

  “What will you have?” asked Freddy.

  “What’s the lady drinking,” Harry asked.

  “A Cuba Libre.”

  “Then give me a straight whiskey.”16

  Straight Whiskey

  When Hemingway drank at Sloppy Joe’s he drank scotch on the rocks. He’d order Chivas or Cutty Sark or J&B, but mostly Chivas. In reality it didn’t matter because Joe Russell, the owner, would fill up empty Chivas, Cutty, and J&B bottles with “skunk piss” Scotch. One can only assume that he poured a similar quality of whiskey straight as well. Obviously, the sensitive palate that Hemingway developed for wine in Paris had not yet caught up with his taste for whiskey in Key West.

  Cuba Libre

  1 SERVING

  2 ounces Havana Club or Bacardí White rum

  Juice of ½ lime, plus the rind

  Cola

  Ice

  Pour the rum and lime juice into a highball glass. Add the lime rind. Fill the glass with cola and ice cubes.

  The Hemingway Daiquirí

  He was drinking another of the frozen daiquirís with no sugar in it and as he lifted it, heavy and the glass frost-rimmed, he looked at the clear part below the frappéd top and it reminded him of the sea. The frappéd part of the drink was like the wake of a ship and the clear part was the way the water looked when the bow cut it when you were in shallow water over marl bottom. That was almost the exact color.

  “I wish they had a drink the color of sea water when you have a depth of eight hundred fathoms and there is a dead calm with the sun straight up and down and the sea full of plankton,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Let’s drink this shallow water drink.”17

  If there is one drink that is synonymous with Ernest Hemingway, it is the Daiquirí. If there is one bar that is synonymous with both Hemingway and the Daiquirí, it is El Floridita in Old Havana. Hemingway found El Floridita in the 1930s and, as with so many other bars, cities, and even countries, he left it, years later, a very different place.

  In Hemingway’s time, Constantino Ribailagua owned El Floridita. Constante, as his customers called him, also served as bartender. If Constante did not invent the Daiquirí, he certainly nurtured it to a position of great notoriety. Constante would blend rum, lemon, sugar, crushed ice, and maraschino with the precision and finesse of an artist at work on his masterpiece. His artistry was not lost on the famous American writer sitting in his regular stool in the first corner to the lef
t at the end of the bar. It was here where Hemingway invented his own version of the Daiquirí, known as the Papa Doble, the Hemingway Daiquirí, the Daiquirí Special, or the Wild Daiquirí.18

  He made two simple changes. First, due to his distaste for sugar in his drinks, he had the Daiquirí made without it. Second, to save time and effort while drinking, he began to order doubles. He would often drink a dozen of these frothy elixirs in one sitting. Legend has it (and what respectable drinker could deny such a legend), that Hemingway once drank 16 Papa Dobles in one run at El Floridita. With 3¾ ounces of rum in each drink, that comes to 60 ounces! Needless to say, El Floridita, and Hemingway, would never be the same.

  Today, El Floridita is more refined than in Hemingway’s day. When Mary Hemingway visited Cuba in 1977, she was not interested in visiting the Floridita, which had lost its charm when all the prostitutes and maricones left. Nonetheless, El Floridita thrives on the memory of its most famous patron.

  The Myth of the Mojito

  Curiously, El Floridita was not the only bar to capitalize on Hemingway’s star status. La Bodeguita del Medio, a “claustrophobic little hole-in-the-wall,”19 has carved out its own piece of the Hemingway legend. Above the bar, a sign reads:

  MY MOJITO IN LA BODEGUITA

  MY DAIQUIRÍ IN EL FLORIDITA

  The quote is signed “Ernest Hemingway” in his unmistakable script. Thanks to the insatiable appetites of tourists and journalists for Hemingway lore, the mojito has made its way into The Hemingway Bar. In fact, that sign was not created until well after the Castro revolution in 1959. The owners needed a way to increase business and attract tourists, and Hemingway seemed like the perfect spokesman. It did not matter that Hemingway probably never set foot in the place, which was nothing more than a bodeguita, or grocery store, in Hemingway’s drinking days. They did not even have a bar until the mid-1950s. All that aside, there was no place on the narrow street outside El Bodeguita for Ernest’s chauffeur to park, and the fact that there is no such thing as a sugarless mojito confirms that the Hemingway connection with the drink is completely fictional. Nonetheless, it is a marvelously refreshing drink, and truly Cuban. As close as Hemingway came to the mojito was a drink invented by Gregorio Fuentes—at once mate, cook, and bartender aboard the Pilar—to prevent or cure colds. It is very similar to a mojito, sweetened with honey instead of sugar: