A drink with the author
It has finally gotten above 70 degrees in Baltimore. The air is balmy, and the trees are in bloom, so it’s a day to be giddy and frivolous.
I figured out years ago that William Faulkner’s prose went down more smoothly when consumed with a little bourbon, its natural solvent. So as you settle down in the evening with a book by a favorite author, what beverage should accompany it?
Faulkner: Bourbon and water, and not too much damn water. A good tipple with Eudora Welty as well.
Fitzgerald: Gin, of course.
Jane Austen: Madeira — a little sweeter and lighter than sherry, which would also be suitable.
Dr. Johnson: Tea. You’ll need to keep your wits about you. The doctor himself reportedly consumed 17 cups in succession during one evening of talk.
Mencken: Pilsner.
Nabokov: Champagne.
Joyce: Porter or stout, like the “dozen of stout” delivered in “Ivy Day in the Committee Room.”
Cheever: Martinis. Dry. Straight up. Also good with Edmund Wilson.
Philip Larkin: Gin again.
Barbara Pym: Claret.
Waugh: Brandy.
Wodehouse: Brandy and soda.
Twain: Lager.
Flannery O’Connor; Coffee, black.
If you want more, you’ll have to serve some yourselves. Suddenly, I’m very thirsty.
Comments
Pretty good list. Hemingway? An apertif or something with color in it, right? I guess anything with alcohol in it, really.
Posted by: boombat | April 17, 2008 1:53 PM
How about a little Huxley - maybe with some Absinthe? :)
Posted by: JB Dryden | April 17, 2008 1:56 PM
You forgot Hemingway and a mojito
Posted by: TCK | April 17, 2008 2:25 PM
Dostoevsky -- vodka, straight and ice-cold
Malcolm Lowry -- mezcal
Jack Kerouac - well, maybe something to smoke, not drink
William Burroughs - something to shoot up
Coleridge -- opium
Posted by: Bill Walderman | April 17, 2008 4:30 PM
A friend gave me Hemingway & Bailey's Bartending Guide to Great American Writers, which is a little book containing short biographical sketches relating to the the featured writers' propensities to imbibe, excerpts of their prose, and drink recipes related to the writers, either by actual preferences or as imagined by the authors of the book. It's a fun book to have around, and the "Hemingway" in the title apparently is Ernest Hemingway's grandson.
Posted by: CJM | April 17, 2008 4:56 PM
J. K. Rowling - Hi-C. Added vodka optional. :-)
Posted by: mike | April 17, 2008 6:00 PM
Stephen King: Piss-warm Black Label beer
Posted by: Jim Thomsen | April 17, 2008 6:18 PM
Robert B Parker - Whatever Spenser is drinking in that particular book.
Tolkien - If you are "in" the Shire (or even near it), good English ale, say, Samuel Smith's Nut Brown. White wine if dealing with elves. At all times, a pipe.
Keats - Burgundy, Claret, and Port.
Posted by: LastBestAngryMan | April 17, 2008 8:32 PM
McIntyre: hemlock
(Sorry. Don't mean it all, I'm sure you know. Just couldn't resist.)
Posted by: Peter Fisk | April 18, 2008 2:25 AM
See here, Fisk, hold back. Wait for the people who mean it.
Posted by: John McIntyre | April 18, 2008 8:22 AM
E. A. Poe: Gin with laudanum.
Joseph Conrad: Rum and a shot of ice-cold vodka
Philip Roth: a Bloody Mary
H. G. Wells: Single-malt Scotch
Tom Wolfe: Classic Martini
Upton Sinclair: Schlitz and a shot
Posted by: John Read | April 18, 2008 10:27 AM
Bill McKibben or Barbara Kingsolver--beer made from organically grown hops, handbottled of recycled glass, of course.
Posted by: Pam | April 18, 2008 10:41 AM
Homer: Sea-dark wine.
Posted by: steve | April 18, 2008 11:46 AM
Poe -- Amontillado, of course!
Housman -- Malt (does more than Milton can/ To justify God's ways to Man)
Posted by: Bill Walderman | April 18, 2008 11:47 AM
Orwell: Flat Coca-Cola, which you proclaim to be doubleplusdelicious.
I thought the Hemingway drink was a daiquiri?
Dante: A Bellini
Fleming: A Vesper, natch!
Gibran: Something contemplative. . .Earl Grey perhaps?
Sun Tzu: Green tea, hot.
HST: Um. . .ether? I think moonshine would produce a good effect. Or Everclear.
Posted by: Denise | April 18, 2008 12:27 PM
Horace -- Falernian
Demosthenes -- water
Beowulf -- mead
Homer -- kykeon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kykeon
Posted by: Bill Walderman | April 18, 2008 2:29 PM
Keats - a beaker of blush-red wine
Dylan Thomas - warm, flat, Welsh bitter beer (and keep him away from the whisky)
Cervantes - Rioja
Shakespeare - a dish of ale
RL Stevenson - Guinness (or rum, depending on book)
Posted by: Terry Collmann | April 23, 2008 4:46 PM
McIntyre's Blog - Water, on the rocks.
Posted by: Bruce Robinson | August 21, 2008 5:52 PM