Customer Reviews

Hemingway & Bailey's Bartending Guide to Great American Writers

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Christmas. Greenwich Village. Mark Bailey was sitting at a bar with his friend Edward Hemingway, an artist, illustrator and grandson of the hard-drinking writer. They were sipping beers. The writers standing around them were nursing club sodas.

This seemed wrong. America has many traditions, but few it actually honors. One is the tradition of drinking among American writers --- and drinking to extreme, at that. As Truman Capote once said (astutely quoting Brendan Behan), "We are drinkers with writing problems."

Bailey and Hemingway could have dealt with their distress as many of us do --- strap on their Nikes, fire up their iPods, and rush off to the gym to pound down a few miles on the elliptical trainer. But one of then bore a great name, the other a large thirst.

In short, they had a...duty.

So they set out on a patriotic quest.

Their mission: make the case for classic cocktails by sharing great drink recipes and outlandish literary anecdotes of the kind generated whenever men and women of talent knock back two or three too many. And, just for good measure, they found excerpts from each writer's fiction that deals with the results of liquor.

If you are firmly seated on a bar stool and promise not to chug your Perrier, I will share some of their findings.

"Don't you know that drinking is slow death?" F. Scott Fitzgerald asked. Robert Benchley took a sip and replied: "So who's in a hurry?"

Charles Bukowski could drink 30 beers at one sitting.

Raymond Carver invited friends to a party, but failed to attend as he got drunk in another city.

Unable to pay a bar bill in Paris, Hart Crane started a brawl so he could get arrested.

Lillian Hellman was in New York. Dashiell Hammett, her paramour, was in Los Angeles. In the middle of the night, she telephoned him --- and got his secretary. She was too drunk to realize he had no secretary, but when she sobered up, she flew to LA, went to Hammett's house, smashed his bar and immediately returned to New York. Bailey's comment: "Hellman knew where to kick a man."

Ring Lardner once drank for 60 hours straight (though "straight" seems inexact).

H.L. Mencken: "I'll drink as much as I want, and one drink more."

A doctor told Dorothy Parker she had to stop drinking --- or she'd be dead within a month. Parker: "Promises, promises."

[Let me state for the record: I do not endorse this behavior, I merely note it.]

It might be said that behind every great author there is a great bottle. My guess is that in most cases the bottle is empty. This little book takes a look at how great american writers have produced so many empty bottles.

For each author you will find: a drinking story, a drink recipe, and a paragraph or two from a representative work. The stories are fun. The drink recipes are spot on, simple and well done. I've mixed several and never had a complaint.

I have about 10 of these sitting on top of the wine rack in the dining room. It's nice to hand one out to someone who's drinkin' what you're mixin'.

This is a wonderful addition to any library, whether you're teetotaller or someone who likes to tipple more than occasionally. It features wonderful bios of some of America's greatest writers, and the authors don't hide the warts.

Each two-page tribute features a caricature, a brief bio and a memorable quote from each author, along with a list of important works, an excerpt from a signature work, and - very important for a "bartending guide" - a recipe for each author's favorite cocktail.

Author Mark Bailey and illustrator Edward Hemingway (yes, Papa's grandson!) do a great job putting together this guide.

A must-have addition for your library, whether you consider yourself a fan of great literature, or just someone who would like to hoist a few with any of the writers featured in this tome.

THIS IS AN ABSOLUTELY DELIGHTFUL BOOK. It is a great gift for any interested in authors or mixing drinks ... or both. Small but packs a powerful punch.

Combine one shot of booze, four ounces of Great American Writers, and garnish heavily with several tales of drunken exploits. What you get is a tidy little book that'll knock your socks off.

This isn't exactly a cocktail recipe book. It's not really a literature anthology, either. I'm not entirely sure what it is, but I do know that it's one of the most enjoyable books I've bought in the past year or two.

In a nutshell, Bailey and Hemingway were sitting in a bar one night, remembering the good old days when authors found their ideas at the bottom of a bottle. So as a tribute to the great author-drinkers 20th Century, they mixed up this book. They picked out about 70 writers and paired them each with a real, no-fooling-around kind of drink. Then they selected a short excerpt from each author's work, and to round it out (and here's where the book gets really entertaining), there's a story of some drunken feat.

As far as the drink recipes in this book go, I like every one of them that I've tried. No, it's not nearly a complete compilation of cocktails, but there's something for everybody here, whether you're a fan of the quick and harsh Boilermaker or the dainty French 75, the sophisticated Gimlet, or the casual Planter's Punch. Bottoms up!

I always wondered what Jack Kerouac's favorite drink was...and now I know thanks to Hemingway & Bailey's guide---and I even know how to mix it. A great idea and great execution!

I absolutely love this book. Not only do I love great writers, especially the crazy ones, but I love booze too. When I pick up this book it not only shows some of the writers character by the drink they choose but it makes me want to make a drink for myself. Great coffee table book/conversation piece.