Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Eugene O’Neill’s favorite cocktail

For our literary St. Patrick’s Day cocktail needs (yes, that’s a real need), we must look to the great drinkers of the Irish-American lit tradition. In fact, I didn’t have to look very far, because a favorite of Eugene O’Neill’s is featured in our very own Hemingway & Bailey’s Bartending Guide to Great American Writers: A Gibson, which we’ve further modified (green food coloring, anyone?) to make appropriate for St. Patty’s Day.

Whatever the original recipe, a Gibson is now nothing more than a dry Martini garnished with cocktail onions. Drinking at the bar of the Garden Hotel in New York, O’Neill often added a splash of club soda to his, but we don’t recommend that. As the stories make clear, when it comes to experimenting with alcohol, O’Neill is not a man to imitate.

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GIBSON

2 1/2 oz. gin
1/2 oz. dry vermouth
2 or 3 cocktail onions
green food coloring (until appropriately gross-looking to fit the holiday)

Pour gin and dry vermouth into a mixing glass filled with ice cubes. Stir well. Strain into  a chilled cocktail glass. Dye it green. Garnish with cocktail onions.

Tags: Euegene O'Neill, Garden Hotel, Gibson, Hemingway and Bailey's Bartending Guide to Great American Writers, St. Patrick's Day, St. Patrick's Day cocktails, St. Patrick's Day drinks