Books

7 Cocktail Recipes Inspired by Literature

Be it filled with pages or parties, behold, seven literary-inspired cocktail recipes for your weekend. Drink up.

by Claire Luchette

The Perfect Cocktail: a Book and a Drink

Be it filled with pages or parties, behold, seven literary-inspired cocktail recipes for your weekend. Drink up.

Gertrude Beer Stein

Enjoy a beer poured into a cold stein and take a minute to consider: "An eye glass, what is an eye glass, it is water. A splendid specimen, what is it when it is little and tender so that there are parts."

A Rum of One's Own

Mix 1 part rum, 3 parts ginger beer, a splash of grapefruit juice, garnish with citrus. Serve at your dinner party, or sip alone while writing fiction and refusing to become Judith Shakespeare.

The White Album Russian

Mix 2 parts coffee liqueur, 3 parts cream, 5 parts vodka. Serve on ice. Wax nostalgic about California in the '60s. Remember that time you went to a Doors recording session?

Ginfinite Jest

Mix 1 part gin, 3 parts San Pellegrino Limonata, garnish with lemon. Serve on ice while watching the Entertainment or enjoy just after a tennis match.

Dave Eggers Nog

Whisk 2 egg yolks and add 1/4 sugar. Heat 1 cup milk, a clove, and a healthy dash of cinnamon over the stove. Temper the eggs (add half the warm milk to the eggs and mix, then add it all back to the other half of the milk). Cook on low heat until it all thickens, then add 1 cup cream and let cool. Serve with a heavy hand of brandy. Enjoy while browsing McSweeney's.

The Bellini Jar

Recipe: Mix 2 parts Prosecco, 1 part peach purée. Sip while soaking in the bathtub and listening to the old bray of your heart.

The Old Man and the Sea Breeze

1 part vodka, 1 part grapefruit juice, 3 parts cranberry. Serve on ice in a salt-rimmed glass. And go after that marlin, damn it.

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