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Slideshow
Stockton bar’s ‘literary giants’ cocktails
If there’s a cocktail inspired by your literary idol, what would it be? We examine the relationship between some of the world’s greatest writers and alcohol as we review Stockton’s take on 13 cocktails inspired by literary giants from Ernest Hemingway and Hunter S. Thompson to John Cheever and Truman Capote.
Papa Hemingway enjoying a bottle or two
The cocktails are part of the ‘Minds Undone’ series launched recently by Stockton, ranked No. 8 on Asia’s 50 Best Bar List in 2017, to pay homage to great literary giants who are known for their liberal use of libations as their agent for creativity.
Led by Malcolm Wood and mixologist Suraj Gurung, the mixology team at Stockton have put their favourite authors in the limelight and curated a menu based on these creative minds’ tipples of choice. William Faulkner, the great American writer from Mississippi, always kept his whiskey within reach, and F. Scott Fitzgerald probably never wrote anything significant without the influence of alcohol, as he insisted that: “My stories written when sober are stupid”.
Click through the pages to see the cocktails, inspired by storytellers, poets and journalists, iconic artists and the stories behind each drink. All cocktails are priced at HK$130 each.
Ernest Hemingway: Big Dick
It’s no secret that booze was practically Hemingway’s life blood. The writer’s boozy trail leads one from Spain to Havana and Africa and anywhere else he went. Made from house rum blend, Irish whiskey, Pedro Ximénez Sherry, lime and cane syrup, the name of the drink alludes to one of the most pleasurable and lurid episodes in Hemingway’s semi-autobiographic book A Movable Feast.
One of the most riveting revelations in the book was a story when Hemingway assesses F. Scott Fitzgerald’s manhood after Zelda (the writer’s wife) told her husband that he was “built in such a way that he could never make a woman happy”. Hemingway, being a loyal friend, promptly escorted his pal to the men’s room at Restaurant Michuad in Paris and assures his friend that everything is “perfectly fine” and even suggested his friend to compare his member to statues at the Louvre.
It’s hard to verify if this incident actually took place or how faithful was the account as the author himself disclaimed in the book that, “for reasons sufficient to the writer, many places, people, observations and impressions have been left out of the book”.
Scott Fitzgerald: Tender Addict
Besides being one of the most prolific writers of his time, F. Scott Fitzgerald was a raging booze hound in every sense of the word. His writing was brimming with alcohol-infused plots and twists. Think of The Great Gatsby. Despite four alcohol-induced breakdowns and declining health, the writer stayed unfazed and faithful to his drinks. After all, this is a guy who famously said, “Too much of anything is bad, but too much Champagne is just right”.
The author later even attributed his flow of creativity to drinking, saying, “Drink heightens feeling. When I drink, it heightens my emotions and I put it in a story…My stories written when sober are stupid.”
Besides Champagne, the writer also favoured gin-based cocktails as he believed that it couldn’t be detected on his breath. The Tender Addict is thus a gin-centric, refreshing drink made from Tanqueray gin, coffee infusion, Islay whisky, lime, lemon verbena, elderflower, egg white and house orange bitter.
Truman Capote: Hidden Lady
Truman Capote for most part of his life struggled with alcohol and drug abuse, but was never shy about his addiction. In his sobering self description, the author of Breakfast at Tiffany and In Cold Blood once said, “I am an alcoholic. I am a drug addict. I am homosexual. I am a genius.”
Known for his love for what he calls his “orange drink”, namely the Screwdriver, a mixture of vodka, orange juice and orange slices, Capote was always seen with a drink in hand at parties, be it his favourite orange drink or a Martini. The Hidden Lady cocktail is an upgraded version of his usual orange drink, with saké, apricot, orange sherbet, lime, mace, ladies early grey, verbena syrup, house orange bitters. The name also plays on Capote’s flamboyant personality and his eccentric cross-dressing habits.
William Faulkner: Cake Eater
The Nobel Prize winner is known for his succinct writing style that never dwells on unnecessary words, thus everything one writes should carry weight and connotation. So when he declared that “A man shouldn’t fool with booze until he’s fifty, and then he’s a damn fool if he doesn’t,” we shouldn’t take his words lightly.
Although we doubt that the literary giant hadn’t fooled with booze in his tender age. After all, he once revealed to his French translator Maurice Edgar Coindreau that “I always keep my whiskey within reach; so many ideas that I can’t remember in the morning pop into my head.”
His love for whiskey was pretty vocal and he even argued that “there’s no such thing as bad whiskey”, the reason being ,”Some whiskeys just happen to be better than others.”
One of the greatest writers of American history, with works such as The Sound and The Fury, As I Lay Dying, and Light in August, Faulkner’s spirit is immortalised in a drink called Cake Eater, concocted from bourbon, pecan infusion, ginger, lime, matcha, mace and egg white.
Edna St. Vincent Millay: Psycho Bunny
Edna St. Vincent Millay, the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winner and playwright, was known for her feminist activism and her whimsical attitude towards writing and her notorious drinking habits.
Her life was sodden by alcohol and drug use, and after several hospitalisations for alcohol and drug related nervous breakdowns, Millay was forced to cut back on her alcohol intake. But sobriety, a term less familiar to this poet, was defined by her as restricting her daily alcohol intake to a litre and a half of wine, as noted by The New Yorker.
Psycho Bunny, a drink dedicated to the always intoxicated but never-boring poet, is made from gosling rum, five spice infusion, apple brandy, pomegranate syrup, pama liqueur, absinthe and yellow chartreuse.
John Cheever: Wapshot
An exceptional novelist, John Cheever is the author of five books and many memorable short stories that landed him the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and National Book Award.
Calling himself a “solitary drunkard”, Cheever’s work and life evolved around alcohol. His dependence on booze, especially gin was described as “his only way out” of his growing anxieties and insecurities. Author of the short story Sorrows of Gin, Cheever once famously wrote, “There is a terrible sameness to the euphoria of alcohol and the euphoria of metaphor.”
His extent of alcoholism and his uneasiness with his bisexuality are documented in his daughter’s book called Drinking in America: Our Secret History.
The Wapshot pays tribute to two of Cheever’s award-winning novels – The Wapshot Chronicle and The Wapshot Scandal. Made from blanco Tequila, mezcal, lime, Luxardo maraschino, pineapple, yellow chartreuse and a dab of chili oil, the drink is an adequate tipple to sip along the lines of the great John Cheever.
Jack Kerouac: White Horse
The captain of the ‘Beat’ writers, Jack Kerouac’s On The Road defined a whole generation and its impact extends to today’s American society.
The drink is named after his local watering hole, The White Horse Tavern, in New York City just right across where Kerouac used to live. The tavern became practically his second home and a gathering point for other Beat poets including Allen Ginsberg. It’s even rumoured to have a line written above the urinal at the tavern that says, “Jack, go home”, as an attempt to get the writer to stop drinking and head home.
The eponymous drink was made from blanco Tequila, green Chartreuse, raspberry, lemon, lime and mace.
Walter Cronkite: Anchorman
Walter Cronkite, the iconic CBS news journalist who reported on almost all the historic events of his time from WWII to moon landing, defined the role of an anchorman for generations of viewers in the US.
Once called: “the most trusted man in America”, Cronkite at the height of his career was known as the most recognised person in the US after the president. Aside from his muck-racking journalism, the anchorman is known for his love of wine, Scotch and fortified wines.
The Anchorman drink seems to be a fitting tribute to the television legend, made from Kentucky bourbon, Campari, Montenegro, Frangelico, chocolate bitters and house Angostura bitters.
Dorothy Parker: Fiery Ginger
Dorothy Parker, the troubled American poet, was as remembered for being a ruinous drunkard as she was for being an illuminating poet. One of the most accomplished female writers of her time, Parker was plagued by suicidal fantasies. Her drinking habit was even derided at a party by none other than Hemingway when he improvised a poem called “To a Tragic Poetess”.
But the poet survived the jabs, three marriages and several suicide attempts. The Fiery Ginger cocktail, made from Martell Cognac, aquavit, pistachio, ginger, Cynar, lime, celery shrub and walnut, perhaps best summarises her relentless spirit.
Oscar Wilde: Fizzy Rascal
The brilliant writer and playwright over the years gave us no shortage of witty one-liners including the one where he aptly surmised, “work is the curse of drinking class”.
Widely recognised as an absinthe aficionado, Wilde was also a staunch Champagne lover. In his libel trial against the Marquess of Queensberry, when Wilde was questioned on the stand by Edward Carson, the Irish poet still did not fail to pronounce his love for his iced Champagne, even strongly against his doctor’s order.
Consume The Fizzy Rascal, a cocktail made from his favourites – absinthe and Champagne, with judicious moderation, as he once concluded, “I have made an important discovery… that alcohol, taken in sufficient quantities produces all the effects of intoxication.”
Edgar Allan Poe: Macabre
One of the great American horror writers, Edgar Allan Poe’s mysterious death in Baltimore became as intriguing as many of his works with theories ranging from rabies, murder and more obviously, binge drinking.
A dark character best known for his tales of mystery and macabre, Poe had a tumultuous relationship with alcohol throughout his life. At times, his career was in jeopardy because of his drunkenness. He once wrote a grovelling letter to his publisher apologising for drinking too many juleps, a classic bourbon-based refresher.
Made from Martell Cognac, cherry herring, walnut, crème de cacao, mace, lime and cream, the Macabre cocktail takes you to explore the dark secrets of the horror writer.
Raymond Chandler: Forty Four
The creator behind the famous Philip Marlowe detective series was, even by Hollywood standards, a decadent drunkard.
When he suffered writer’s block working on the screenplay for Paramount’s thriller The Blue Dahlia, Chandler told the movie studio that the only way he can finish his work was to get “blind drunk”.
In his process of drinking, he suffered blackouts and threatened suicides, but alcohol to him was like love as his lead character Marlowe would say: “The first kiss is magic, the second is intimate, the third is routine. After that you take the girl’s clothes off”.
Made from apple brandy, apricot toasted coconut, bergamot, lime, lemon, egg white, cream, nutmeg, the cocktail called Forty Four is a tribute to the author’s age when he decided to become a detective fiction writer, after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Great Depression.
Hunter S. Thompson: Bat Country
Hunger S. Thompson, who coined the writing style ‘Gonzo Journalism’, advocated writing in first person voice to get to the truth of a story. As he recounted the cocaine-snorting and alcohol-quaffing adventures in his acclaimed Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Rum Diaries, we can believe that whisky and drugs were part of his daily ritual in real life.
In fact it is often reported that his daily regimen consisted of: Chivas Regal, cocaine, margaritas, beers, chartreuse, Champagne and more drugs.
The Thompson-inspired drink called Bat Country, has its origins in a scene in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas when Duke and Dr. Gonzo are driving through a desert, Duke, under the heavy influence of drugs, shouts, “We can’t go there, this is bat country”.
Made from Irish whiskey, gosling rum, blackcurrant, Turkish coffee, Guinness syrup, pistachio, cardamom and wild civet cream, the drink, when taken in sufficient quantities, can surely lead you to see Duke’s bat country as well.