If you want to give your Christmas party this year a literary flavour, you can refer to Hemingway & Bailey’s Bartending Guide to Great American Writers, written by Mark Bailey and illustrated by Edward Hemingway (grandson of Ernest). The book includes recipes for writers’ favourite poisons as well as stories about their alcohol-fuelled escapades and excerpts from their works about drinking (often written on the same fuel).

Quillblog likes Hemingway’s recipe for the mojito, “invented at La Bodeguita del Medio in Havana, Cuba,” but a favourite excerpt comes from Raymond Chandler’s 1953 novel The Long Goodbye:

“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.”

Thanks to bookslut.com for the link to the National Public Radio link.

Related links:
Click here for the NPR interview with the authors