Posts tagged with Hemingway & Bailey’s Bartending Guide to Great American Writers

September 3, 2010

A Labor Day Drink
That Packs a Punch!

Why do we celebrate Labor Day? Is it because 200 hundred years ago, President Cleveland was feeling a tad sheepish about that whole Pullman-Strike debacle? Possibly. But I think it serves a grander purpose. It’s because we’re all tired and could really use an extra day to catch up on our reading. It’s because the warm weather won’t be around forever. It’s because society needs some definitive deadline on the appropriate wearing of white.

So, in honor of this most tranquil of days, a punch!

Planter’s Punch

One, two, three, four, punch. Punch, which literally means five in Farsi, Hindi, and over a dozen other languages, should have a minimum of five different ingredients. John O’Hara probably did not know this. Something of a barroom brawler, he believed a punch needed only a clenched fist.

2 oz. dark rum
1 oz. light rum
1/2 oz. Grand Marnier
1/2 oz. simple syrup
1/2 oz. lime juice
1 oz. orange juice
1 oz. pineapple juice
1 dash of grenadine
2 dashes of Angostura bitters
Maraschino cherry
Orange slice
Pineapple wedge

Pour all ingredients (except fruit) into a cocktail shaker filled with ice cubes. Shake, and then strain into a Collins glass filled with ice cubes. Garnish with cherry, orange slice, and pineapple wedge. Serve with two straws.

–From Hemingway & Bailey’s Bartending Guide to Great American Writers

2 comments

August 27, 2010

Love And Drinks
With Hammett and Hellman

I feel like I’ve been having a lot of conversations about love lately–or rather, the nature of relationships. And I’ve come to the following conclusion: The very person you pine for, swoon over, and generally idolize also inspires you to plot elaborate murder-suicide scenarios which include dragging your beloved around by the (undoubtedly luscious) hair. Love is painful. And not in the 90-minute-Meg-Ryan-romantic-comedy sort of way. Some days it seems like it just might not be worth the fuss. Those days, we can be thankful for Hemingway & Bailey’s Bartending Guide to Great American Writers.

Dashiel Hammett and Lillian Hellman spent the drunker part of thirty years together, a literary power couple who not only understood the absurdities of being in a relationship, but took love and alcohol very seriously.

During one evening, drunk and arguing with Hellman, Hammett took the cigarette he was smoking and began to grind it out on his cheek. “What are you doing!” screamed Hellman. Hammett’s answer, “Keeping myself from doing it to you.”

Hungover and facing the Broadway opening of The Children’s Hour, Hellman got blind drunk on brandy. Waking the next morning and hungover yet again, she got herself a cold beer and telephoned Hammett, who was living in Los Angeles. She reached his secretary. Two days later Hellman would realize: (1) at the time she called it was three A.M. in California, and (2) Hammett had no secretary. She took the first plane out, got drunk en route, and went directly to Hammett’s house. She smashed his bar to pieces and flew back to New York.

Points to Hammett for subtlety, but Hellman displays an endurance, patience, and aptitude for unapologetic violence that far surpasses Hammett’s masochistic little stunt. In honor of the crazy things that people do because of love (and inebriation), we have Hellman’s drink of choice, a favorite of her good buddy Hemingway: the daiquiri.

Daiquiri

2 oz. light rum
1 oz. lime juice
3/4 oz. simple syrup
Lime wheel

Pour all ingredients into a cocktail shaker filled with ice cubes. Shake well. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with lime wheel. Try not to put burning things out on your face/ fly three thousand miles to deface property. Enjoy!

-Susannah

3 comments

August 13, 2010

Friday The 13th

A Toast To Poe

Happy Friday the 13th! Or is it Unhappy …

Either way, it’s a Friday and it’s a day of note so there must be festivities and there must be a toast. And who better to guide us than our literary authority on all things doom, gloom, and fright?

Edgar Allan Poe had a great affection for absinthe. Sixty-eight percent alcohol mixed with a toxic herb called wormwood, absinthe was the drink of choice for poets and artists of the mid- to late nineteenth century. Until banned in 1912, absinthe was a key ingredient of the Sazerac. One of the first cocktails created in America, the Sazerac originated in New Orleans in the early 1800s. We have replaced the absinthe with Pernod. We hope Poe will forgive us.

SAZERAC

3 dashes of Pernod
2 oz. rye whiskey
1/4 oz. simple syrup
3 dashes of Peychaud bitters
Lemon twist

Pour Pernod into a chilled Old-Fashioned glass. Swirl until entire inside of glass is coated, then discard excess. Pour rye, simple syrup, and bitters into a mixing glass filled with ice cubes. Stir well. Strain into the Old-Fashioned glass (no ice). Garnish with lemon twist.

–From Hemingway & Bailey’s Bartending Guide to Great American Writers

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August 2, 2010

Make A Toast

At The Round Table

Algonquin Books can’t help but feel a special bond with Dorothy Parker and the members of the Algonquin Round Table, despite the fact that we are not, as many believe, named after the Algonquin Round Table.

Parker is known for having one of the sharpest tongues of the era (she occupies two spots on the list of the 10 Most Devastating Insults of All Time), a famously dark disposition, and a pen that was, without a doubt, mightier than any sword.

Although married a number of times, Parker was chronically lonely. Her one enduring romance seems to have been with the bottle. She shared a tiny office with pal Robert Benchley and joked, “An inch smaller and it would have been adultery,” but alas the two friends were never to become romantically involved. Parker relied upon liquor and wit to combat her loneliness. Such as when she was admitted to a sanatorium and announced that she would have to leave every hour or so for a cocktail. Her doctor refused, telling her that if she didn’t stop drinking, she’d be dead within the month. Parker’s reply: “Promises, promises.”

-From Hemingway & Bailey’s Bartending Guide to Great American Writers

Champagne Cocktail

Parker, who initially did not like the taste of alcohol, started out drinking Tom Collinses. But gin made her sick, so she soon moved on to scotch and water. Later she discovered champagne. She immediately composed a poem to her new love: “Three be the things I shall never attain: Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.”

1 sugar cube
2 dashes of Angostura bitters
Champagne
Lemon twist

Drop sugar cube into a chilled champagne flute and soak with bitters. Fill with champagne. Garnish with twist. Sometimes an ounce of cognac is added (if you’re lucky).

CHEERS!

Today’s drink recipe is from Hemingway & Bailey’s Bartending Guide to Great American Writers (illustrated by Edward Hemingway and written by Mark Bailey), the definitive guide to drinking like the great literary in-crowd of yesteryear.

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July 28, 2010

Beat the heat, Hemingway style

During these long, hot summer days, nothing feels quite so right as sitting down with a good book, a chilled beverage at your side. We hand out suggestions about good books like candy, but I feel we’ve been lacking in the beverage department. To remedy that, today we have a recipe for the Mojito, courtesy of Hemingway & Bailey’s Bartending Guide to Great American Writers (illustrated by Edward Hemingway and Written by Mark Bailey).

Hemingway (Ernest, of course) is associated with any number of cocktails, but perhaps none more so than the Mojito. The drink was invented at La Bodeguita del Medio in Havana, Cuba, where Papa drank them, as did Brigitte Bardot, Nat King Cole, Jimmy Durante, Erroll Flynn, and countless others. Enjoy!

Mojito

6 fresh mint sprigs
1 oz. lime juice
3/4 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, according to individual taste.

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December 8, 2009

Our Fruitcake-Free Holiday Gift Guide

Don’t want to give Dad a pair of GoldToe socks again this year? We don’t blame you. That’s why no matter who’s on your list, Algonquin has the perfect gift…

For Her

Going Away Shoes
By Jill McCorkle

Eleven short stories, full of longing and laughter, from the “guardian angel of short fiction.”

The Dinner Diaries: Raising Whole Wheat Kids in a White Bread World
By Betsy Block

A humorous, life-changing book on mom’s mission to achieve the ultimate of all makeovers: improving the family meal. Complete with helpful charts, food lists, recipes, tips, and suggested culinary and farm programs for kids.

Last Bite: A Novel of Culinary Romance
By Nancy Verde Barr

Casey Costello, an executive chef at morning television show, is too busy for men…that is until she’s unexpectedly whisked off her feet by the adorable Danny O’Shea, a rising chef from Ireland who seems like he may be more trouble than he’s worth.

For Him

Hard Work: A Life On and Off the Court
By Roy Williams with Tim Crothers

An inspiring memoir from the head coach of the UNC Tar Heels Men’s Basketball team.

Boone: A Biography
By Robert Morgan

This rich, authoritative biography offers a wholly new perspective on a man who has been an American icon for more than two hundred years.

Far Bright Star: A Novel
By Robert Olmstead

Napoleon Childs, an aging cavalryman, leads an expedition of inexperienced soldiers into the mountains of Mexico to hunt down Pancho Villa and bring him to justice.

For the Gardener

Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln’s Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities
By Amy Stewart

An A to Z of plants that kill, maim, intoxicate, and otherwise offend.

A Rose by Any Name: The Little-Known Lore and Deep-Rooted History of Rose Names
By Douglas Brenner and Stephen Scanniello

With full-color art throughout, this eclectic little volume is a marvelous miscellany starring what is arguably the world’s most popular flower.

The $64 Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden
By William Alexander

Part humor tale and part garden memoir, The $64 Tomato follows Bill Alexander on his journey from organic idealist to pragmatic food producer, and from eager backyard gardener to tired gentleman farmer–taking time along the way to reflect on ecology, nature, and the meaning of it all.

For the Foodie

The Feasting Season
By Nancy Coons

Meg Parker is a harried mom in a lackluster marriage until she lands a dream assignment: to write a guidebook about French history. Follow her adventures as lamb daube, paella and rosé, bull steak and anchioade, Brebis and strawberries awaken her senses.

Southern Belly: The Ultimate Food Lover’s Companion to the South
By John T. Edge

Spark a delicious road-trip with this guide to savory, Southern restaurants!

Seasoned in the South: Recipes from Crook’s Corner and from Home
By Bill Smith

Structured around the seasons and the freshest seasonal foods, this cookbook offers up marvelously uncomplicated recipes— Tomato and Watermelon Salad, Fried Green Tomatoes with Sweet Corn and Lemon Beurre Blanc, Pork Roast with Artichoke Stuffing, and his signature dish, Honeysuckle Sorbet—the new bistro food of the South.

For the 20-Something

Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records, the Indie Label That Got Big and Stayed Small
By John Cook with Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance

The exuberant story–in words and pictures–of a much-loved indie record label that, despite the odds, has become a major success story.

Hemingway & Bailey’s Bartending Guide to Great American Writers
Illustrated by Edward Hemingway; Text by Mark Bailey

The perfect blend of classic cocktail recipes, literary history, and tales of the good old days of extravagant Martini lunches and delicious excess.

Rock On: An Office Power Ballad
By Dan Kennedy

Kennedy chronicles his misadventures at a major record label. Whether he’s directing a gangsta rapper’s commercial or battling his punk roots to create an ad campaign celebrating the love songs of Phil Collins, Kennedy’s in way over his head in this power-ballad to office life and rock and roll.

For the Travel Enthusiast

A Thousand Days in Tuscany: A Bittersweet Adventure
By Marlena de Blasi

In search of the rhythms of country living, Marlena and her husband move to a barely renovated former stable in Tuscany with no phone, no central heating, and something resembling a playhouse kitchen. They dwell among two hundred villagers, ancient olive groves, and hot Etruscan springs. Together, they discover the soul of Tuscany and explore all the land has to offer.

Very Washington DC: A Celebration of the History and Culture of America’s Capital City
By Diana Hollingsworth Gessler

A travel guide with character, this fact-filled keepsake offers all the history, beauty, charm, and culture of our nation’s capital city. Also included are an index of sites and a useful appendix of addresses, Web sites, Metro stops, and phone numbers.

New Orleans, Mon Amour: Twenty Years of Writings from the City
By Andrei Codrescu

New Orleans has been author Andrei Codrescu’s hometown for over twenty years. This collection of essays is an epic love song , a clear-eyed elegy, a cultural celebration, and a thank-you note to New Orleans in its Golden Age.

For the Pet Lover

My Therapist’s Dog: Lessons in Unconditional Love
By Diana Wells

An intriguing exploration into the rewards of relationships–both the canine and human varieties–begins when the author agrees to dog-sit for her therapist. What follows is an exploration of our canine connection: what we name our dogs, how we breed them, how we’ve explored the wilderness with them, the kinds of literature we write about them, why we love them, and, most important, what we can learn from them.

First Dogs: American Presidents and Their Best Friends
By Roy Rowan and Brooke Janis

A lighthearted romp through American history, packed with drawings and paintings from early America, plus photographs, starting with Abraham Lincoln’s Fido all the way to Obama’s Bo.

Enslaved by Ducks
By Bob Tarte

Bob gets more than he bargains for when he marries Linda and moves to rural Michigan: there’s Binky, a belligerent rabbit who craves high voltage wires; Ollie, a tyrannical parakeet who brutally attacks the Tartes; and Stanely Sue, the gender-bending parrot; and more. This hilarious account gives us the other side of animal ownership: the complicated logistics of blending species under one roof, the intricate routines that evolve before you realize it, and ultimately, the distinct and insistent personalities of every animal inside—and outside—the house.

-christina