Ernest Hemingway – a True Lover of a Good Cocktail

Ernest Hemingway was an acclaimed American author and journalist celebrated for novels such as A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Rises and For Whom the Bells Toll. He had a significant influence on 20^th century fiction and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. Hemingway was also well-known for his love of a good cocktail and he had a particular penchant for a good Mojito, Daiquiri or Martini. Inspired by his love of Absinthe, Hemingway even invented his own cocktail, the popular Death in the Afternoon cocktail, which is a potent mix of Champagne and Absinthe. The cocktail shares a name with Hemingway`s 1935 novel of the same name.

Cocktails and alcohol are prevalent in many of Hemingway’s great works. In his classic war novel, For Whom the Bells Toll, it is the the ritual of dripped absinthe that gibes Robert Jordan some rest-bite from the horrors of war : “One cup of it took the place of the evening papers, of all the old evenings in cafés, of all chestnut trees that would be in bloom now in this month…. of all the things he had enjoyed and forgotten and that came back to him when he tasted that opaque, bitter, tongue-numbing, brain-warming, stomach-warming, idea-changing liquid alchemy.” Hemingway is also famous for his many quotes about alcohol, many of which still surface in conversation today, one of the most famous being:

“Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.”

The 3 cocktails that tend to be most associated with Ernest Hemingway are the Martini, Mojito and the Daiquiri, although not forgetting about the Death in the Afternoon Cocktail which he invented himself. Hemingway was quite fussy about how his cocktails were prepared and his general motto was the stronger the better! Hemingway referred to his Martini recipe as a “Montgomery”. It featured a gin to vermouth ratio of 15:1. Hemingway named it after Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery—, whom, the joke went, required a 15:1 advantage before he’d go into battle! Hemingway spent a period of his life living in Havana, Cuba and one of his favourite watering holes was La Bodeguita del Medio, which is still a popular bar today under the guise of La BdelM. It was here that he fell in love with the charms of the Mojito cocktail, with all of the ingredients of the cocktail produced locally. The bar is still a famous stop-over for Hemingway fans visiting Havana today, with his signature still on the wall for posterity.

 

 

Some would argue that Hemingway’s favourite, above all other drinks, was the Daiquiri, and in 1912 the head bartender at the famous El Floridita bar in Havana Cuba, created a particular variation in his honour, christened the Hemingway Daiquiri, also known as the Papa Doble. This drink is still served in the bar to this day, often as a frozen version and is also served in cocktail bars across the globe.

Cocktail Ingredients

50 ml White Rum, 10 ml Maraschino Liqueur, 12 1/2 ml Grapefruit Juice, 12 1/2 ml Lime Juice, 12 1/2 ml Simple Syrup, Maraschino Cherry

How to make a Hemingway Daiquiri cocktail

Pour the ingredients into a cocktail shaker with ice cubes. Shake well. Double strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with a maraschino cherry. Serve your Hemingway Daiquiri.