A colourful new book reveals some of your favourite authors’ cocktail preferences to try at home …
Truman Capote: Screwdriver
He called it his ‘orange drink’
1 part vodka
2 parts orange juice
Serve over ice in a highball glass, with orange slice for garnish
Ernest Hemingway: Daiquiri
The recipe from his favourite Floridita Bar in Havana
Juice of half a lime
1 tsp sugar
45ml (1.5fl oz) light rum
Dash of maraschino
1 cup crushed ice
Shake, strain and serve
(From Life is Meals, by James Salter & Kay Salter)
F. Scott Fitzgerald: Gin Rickey
The drink of a jazz age icon
60ml (2fl oz) gin
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Top with club soda
Serve in a highball glass
Anne Sexton & Sylvia Plath: Extra-Dry Martinis
The friends-and-rival poets had a three-martini lunch
15ml (0.5fl oz) vermouth
60–90ml (2–3fl oz) gin or vodka
Lemon twist or olives to serve
Pour vermouth over ice in a shaker; stir, let sit 20 seconds and drain
Pour vodka into the same shaker; stir, let sit 20 seconds
Serve in a martini glass
SEE MORE: Writer Joan Didion’s Love Of Entertaining And Favourite Recipes
Evelyn Waugh: The Stinger
An upper crust tipple
50ml (1.75fl oz) cognac
20ml (0.75fl oz) creme de menthe
Shake over ice and pour into a glass, neat
Eve Babitz: The Bloody Mary
The LA sexpot’s slurp
120ml (4fl oz) tomato juice
45ml (1.5fl oz) vodka
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 dashes Worcestershire Sauce
Salt and pepper
Celery stick to garnish
Serve over ice in a highball glass
Rex Stout: Montenegro After Dark
A detective writer’s exotic sip
60ml (2fl oz) Amaro Montenegro
15ml (0.5fl oz) bourbon
15ml (0.5fl oz) mezcal
1 tbsp sugar syrup
2 dashes orange bitters
1 dash Angostura aromatic bitters
Mix and serve over ice
William Faulkner: Mint Julep
The taste of the American South
120ml (4fl oz) bourbon
1/4 cup mint syrup
Sprig of mint to top
Serve over ice
Jean-Paul Sarte & Simone De Beauvoir: Apricot Fuzzy Naval
The drink that inspired existentialism
90ml (3fl oz) apricot schnapps or apricot brandy
90ml (3fl oz) orange juice
Orange slices for garnish
Mix and serve over ice
EB White: Gin Martini
He drank them like others take aspirin
150ml (5fl oz) 94 per cent proof good English gin, preferably Beefeater or Tanquerey
11/2 capfuls Noilly Prat or Martini & Rossi dry vermouth
6 – 8 cubes hard ice, cracked by hand
1 olive or 1 twist lemon peel
Pour over ice and shake
Decant in a martini glass, add olive or lemon twist and serve
(From Life is Meals, by James Salter & Kay Salter)
From: The Writer’s Table by Valerie Stivers with illustrations by Katie Tomlinson, Frances Lincoln.
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