Some of the drinks below are real, and actually served to the general public legally at a specific bar or multiple bars. Some of the drinks will not see the light of day and so a good rule of thumb is to simply grasp that a drink that contains black tar heroin is not a drink that we recommend pursuing, and you should just look at the photo, read the recipe, catch the book reference and move on to the next one. If it seems to have legal ingredients and some potential for actually tasting good (say you like "grape" or "sharkleberry fin") then mix up a batch and invite some friends over and be a literary hero for less than the normal bar tab you rack up buying Cosmopolitans (see Oscar Wilde Thang).

1. The Ernest Hemingway Special

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2 oz white rum

1/4 oz maraschino liqueur

Juice of 1/2 lime

1 oz grapefruit juice

Squeeze lime juice into a shaker, add remaining ingredients and shake briefly with a glassful of crushed ice. Serve in a frosted cocktail glass.

If you are looking for a bit more courage and a visit with your muse, the Green Fairy, go with Hemingway's Death in the Afternoon, which Hemingway says he came up with "after having spent seven hours overboard trying to get Capt. Bra Saunders' fishing boat off a bank where she had gone with us in a N.W. gale."

1 jigger of absinthe added to a champagne flute. Add iced champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness.

2. The Jack Kerouac

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2oz Rum

1oz Tequila

3oz Orange and/or Cranberry Juice

1 Slice of Lime

Mixed/Served in a Bucket Glass w/ Ice

This drink is served at Vesuvio in San Francisco, which is located at 255 Columbus @ Jack Kerouac Alley in San Francisco (North Beach) next to City Lights bookstore. The legendary hangout was first visited by Neal Cassady in 1955 and became a regular stop for Kerouac and other poets, artists and musicians. You can also mix up a Beatnik before you head to the bar and address your friends as angel-headed hipsters of the night for extra annoying beat generation pseudo-credibility.

3. Douglas Adams: The Pangalactic Gargleblaster

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There have been many attempts to approximate the recipe, and since few people have access to a tooth of an Algolian Suntiger, the most acclaimed version belongs to the club that also pays homage to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in its own name - Zaphod Beeblebrox. The recipe as posted at drinksmixer.com:

1 oz Jack Daniel's® Tennessee whiskey

1 oz peach schnapps

4 - 6 oz orange juice

1 splash Blue Curacao liqueur

"Shake the orange juice, the Jack and the peach schnapps in a shaker 3/4 full with ice cubes. When it's chilled, strain into the highball glass and drizzle some of the blue Curacao liqueur over the top of it. Add a citrus twist (and, bizarrely, an olive if you're a DNA purist), sit back and be prepared to have your brain smashed out by gold bricks, lemons and allsorts."

Bonus for Office Workers: The Ford Prefect

If you are nervous about rumors of Armageddon, grab a co-worker and head to a pub at lunchtime this Thursday, order six pints and rush through 3 of them each for the muscle-relaxing quality of beer as you convince your friend to brace for some impending doom (hopefully you are able to convince him that you are joking later...unless you don't care either way).

4. George Orwell's Big Brother

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4oz Victory Gin

Serve in handle-less china mug

Garnish with a Victory Cigarette that is falling apart and any chocolate you might have left from your rations.

The new ration did not start till tomorrow and he had only four cigarettes left. For the moment he had shut his ears to the remoter noises and was listening to the stuff that streamed out of the telescreen. It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grammes a week. And only yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grammes a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it. - 1984, Ch. 5

 

You are a man of the people. You don’t need any fancy flavored vodka or ice. Nothing says bourgeois like those amenities. Well, if you do, then watch this video for the 1984 Victory Gin Cocktail recipe.

5. Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing

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Garnish with:

¼ oz of Acapulco Gold

50 dihydrocodeinone

Bottle of Ether

1 gram of black tar heroin

8-ball of pure Colombian cocaine

3 packs of cigarettes

Watch out for bats. Write a book about your experience.

6. James Frey's Million Lies

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A fifth of Early Times Whiskey

Garnish with:

¼ oz of Acapulco Gold

50 dihydrocodeinone

Bottle of Ether

1 gram of black tar heroin

8-ball of pure Colombian cocaine

3 packs of cigarettes

Use money from trust fund to buy all the above. Tell everyone you used them. Enter rehab. Write a book about your experience. Admit that you made it all up.

7. JD Salinger's Catcher in the Rye

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3oz Rye Whiskey

Splash of Water

Serve over Ice, in seclusion.

8. Kurt Vonnegut's “Goodbye Blue Monday, Motherfucker”

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1/2 oz vodka

1/2 oz rum

1/2 oz tequila

1/2 oz gin

1/2 oz Blue Curacao liqueur

2 oz sweet and sour mix

2 oz 7-Up® soda

Garnish with 1 Pack of Unfiltered Pall Malls.

Also known as the Bluebeard. If you want to actually continue to be served by the bartender, just call it an Adios Motherfucker or else they are going to think you've lost your mind and you might not actually get served. Also try to locate the cigarette vending machine beforehand, if they exist where you live. Then try to sound cool as you tell your friends that you are drinking a Goodbye Blue Monday, Motherfucker. Tell them before you are trying to explain what a Gubby Munderfucka Blhah Fwah is as you black out in the booth again.

9. Philip K. Dick's Blade Runner

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3 parts Apricot Brandy

5 parts Bourbon

1 part Grenadine

2 parts Lemon Juice

This recipe calls for you to:

Chill a cocktail glass with ice or in the freezer. Pour apricot brandy, bourbon, grenadine and lemon juice into a shaker. Fill the shaker with ice cubes and shake it until the shaker is very cold. Empty the cocktail glass from ice and water. Strain the drink into the cocktail glass.

It's understandable that bars sell colorful drinks more readily at places like The Electric Sheep bar in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan. So, we are going to simply acknowledge that they seem to have recreated a believable Blade Runner atmosphere. But we will be upfront and tell you that if you want to be like Deckard, you should be rocking a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label.

10. Tom Wolfe: “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test”

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1/2 oz amaretto almond liqueur

1/2 oz Blue Curacao liqueur

1/2 oz Southern Comfort® peach liqueur

1/2 oz Midori® melon liqueur

1/2 oz cherry brandy

fill with 1/2 sweet and sour mix

fill with 1/2 cranberry juice

1 splash grenadine syrup

Pour ingredients into a Collins glass filled with ice.

If the Merry Pranksters are dropping at your house then you might want to dodge the optional acid add-on so that you can catch them before they stab your couch because it turns into Optimus Prime. If you don't want to look like a sissy and be ashamed of a grocery store receipt that has liqueur written all over it, then just take a shortcut and go with our alternate version of the drink, and get a few packets of Sharkleberry Fin or Soarin' Strawberry Lemonade, a gigantic bag of sugar and dump in the booze of your choice (LSD use still optional but not advised due to urban legend of spilled orange juice pitcher equaling your own demise being further amplified by chances that you will be the Kool-Aid pitcher crashing through the second story wall of your house). An alternate slush recipe:

26 oz rum

1 package Kool-Aid® Lemon-Lime mix

1 can (large) pineapple juice

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup fresh lemon juice

4 cups water

Sprite® soda

Mix everything together (besides Sprite) and seal it up in a container, and put it in the freezer for 24 hours. The booze won't freeze solid, so you will have that Slurpee flavor you always wanted when 7-11 forced you to choose between some shitty peach flavor or cavity-clinching banana. Fill two-thirds with your happy slush mix and one-third with the Sprit.

11. Jack London’s Call of the Wild Turkey

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1 Bottle of Wild Turkey

After sleeping outside in God’s Country (the wilderness) for a month with a nothing but a pack of wolf-dogs, drinking a bit of whiskey ain't shit. This drink is best consumed while shaving with a rusty straight blade. It’s better to get a head start on the shaving and then start drinking, as opposed to the other way around. Drink straight from bottle, and apply whiskey sparingly with dabbing effect to any nicks incurred while shaving.

12. Cormac McCarthy's Bloody Meridian

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3oz cl Vodka

3oz cl Tomato Juice

2 Tbsp Lemon Juice

Dash of Worcester Sauce

Dash of Tabasco Sauce

Salt and Pepper

Place Salt and Pepper together in Collins glass with sauces and crushed ice. Mix vodka, tomato and lemon juices. Strain and pour into glass. If you are a fan of the novel and a stickler for authenticity, you can ride off on horses with your friends dressed as Apache Indians in the wedding dresses belonging to the women of the village you just ravaged.

13. Chuck Palahniuk: Jack's Medulla Oblongata

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1 Shot of Jack Daniels

1 Room Temperature Beer

Garnish with Bar of Soap

Are you tired of your endless consumption and your mid-level management position? Join the club. This timeless concoction is an ideal prelude to good old fashion reckless abandon. Drink many of these until you just don’t give a fuck any more. Welcome the ensuing chaos.

14. Oscar's Wilde Thang

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3 ozVodka Citron

1 oz Cointreau

1 oz Fresh Lime juice

2 oz Cranberry juice

You worked hard, and so you’re going to play hard. Not only did you go to the gym 5 times this week, but you made some impressive moves in the stock market. When Friday rolls around, consider making it to your favorite lounge a big “You Go Girl”. Saddle up to the bar and wait for a guy to offer to buy you a drink, then tell him that you’ll take an Oscar Wilde.

15. John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath

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6 oz FourMaxed Grape Malt Beverage

3 oz Charles Shaw Cabernet Sauvignon

0.5 oz Absinthe

A Dash of Wormwood Oil

12 Frozen Grapes

Place grapes in Collins glass. Pour out FourMaxed over grapes. Mix Wine, Absinthe and Wormwood oil and pour into glass. Throw up as your house is bulldozed and prepare to head west. If you can't find a can of FourMaxed, then go with the next best thing which is the beloved Sparks.

16. Isaac Asimov’s Nightfall

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2oz Goldschlager

2oz Jagermeister

Mix together contents in shaker with a few ice cubes. Shake vigorously. Strain and pour into a bucket glass. Upon Serving the Gold Flakes in this dark drink will look like stars in outerspace. Drink these until your world is covered in darkness (black-out).

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