HFL's List of Literary Cocktails
a work in progress
"because alcoholism is just like writing: it's a disease."
The Billy Collins
Two shots each of four non-complementary liquors. Shake well and serve. Done correctly, the drink should (like the paradelle, the inspiration behind it), evoke both hilarity and déjà vu.
The Bukowski
Three parts vodka, one part lighter fluid, one raw egg. Serve in an ashtray and start a fist-fight.
The Dylan Thomas
25 shots of anything. Remember, you can only have this drink once.
The Emily Dickinson
Basically a Shirley Temple made in a to-go cup. The recipient must leave the gathering at once and drink the cocktail alone in her bedroom.
The Thomas Pynchon
To be made by the drinker, not the bartender. Receive a bottle of scotch and a one-way ticket to San Jose from a man on a streetcorner in a raincoat. Take the flight and be met at the airport by a mysterious and beautiful woman. Move into her apartment and cohabitate for sixteen months, until you realize that love cannot truly exist in the postmodern era. Move out and take one of her tumblers by mistake. Bring the tumbler to your first appointment with a new psychiatrist, as a symbol of the overwhelming impossibility of ever truly knowing anyone. Ask the doctor for two ice cubes and pour yourself a small glass. Do not, under any circumstances, drink it.
As has been mentioned this is a work in progress and might become a zine someday. There is just no way of knowing! Suggestions and contributions are always, always welcome.
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4 comments:
The Gogol! A glass of Ukrainian vodka at the office christmas party. The drink puts on your coat and starts talking to your boss. The boss offers the drink a mid-level clerical post. The drink refuses to be drunk until you suggest a better way to organise his intra-office messages.
the dostoevsky: mix two parts well vodka with one part misery. best consumed while at a freezing tavern or the haymarket. may cause delusions of grandeur and/or an interminable trip to a prison camp.
I propose an alternate Billy Collins: Carbonated, caffeinated, accessible (perhaps something like Sparks) and mixed with the tears of five underage virgins.
Also, the Marcel Proust, aka the Combray Iced Tea: Your favorite drink from childhood mixed with brandy and a red wine slightly redolent of your mother. To be drunk in the throes of jealous love. (Warning: may trigger an awareness of your own mortality.)
And the Andre Breton: Steal the drink of a beautiful, eccentric young woman. Pass it off as your own.
The Joe Eszterhas:
Bubbly champaigne served from a breast implant. This is what you imagine a woman might drink, but you're not really sure.
...sorry I'm late
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