A is for Ale

After the accident, Nick spots Daisy and Tom Sitting in their kitchen picking at a plate of cold fried chicken. Each has a bottle of Ale in front of them, seemingly untouched.

(The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

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C is for Champagne

There was no sparkling Californian wines around in 1920s New York, oh no. The champagne served at Gatsby’s amazing parties was the real deal and hugely expensive, not to mention illegal, at the time. The book is a ‘profusion of champagne’ often served in ‘finger bowls’. Gatsby drank little, if any, but sometimes wore champagne: “Sometimes in the course of gay parties women used to rub champagne in his hair; for himself he formed the habit of letting liquor alone.”

C is for Cocktails

Prohibition saw the rise of the cocktail because ‘bath tub gin’ and other home-made spirits were so disgusting that their flavour needed to be disguised with other things. Only two cocktails are named in the Gatsby – The Gin Rickey and the Mimosa – but there are cocktails everywhere and martinis certainly would have been among them: “A tray of cocktails floated at us through the twilight.”

(The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

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H is for Highballs

Highballs (a cocktail of Whiskey and Ginger Ale) are served at the lunch Gatsby has with Nick and Mr. Wolfsheim in New York.

(The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

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M is for Mint Julep

Mmmmmmmint. This Southern classic is drunk in less-than-joyful circumstances, when Daisy, her husband Tom and Gatsby are fighting in the hotel. “I’ll make you a mint julep,” Daisy tells her husband. “Then you won’t seem so stupid to yourself.”

Ouch! It is indeed a refreshing drink but I doubt anything could wake Tom up to himself. The Mint Julep is bourbon, mint and sugar over crushed ice and is inextricably linked to the Southern states.

(The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

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R is for Rickey (Gin)

Daisy, Gatsby’s love object, orders her husband Tom to “make us a cold drink”. Returning, Tom carries “four gin Rickeys that clicked full of ice. Gatsby took up his drink. ‘They certainly look cool,’ he said with visible tension. We drank in long, greedy swallows”.

As you would this super-clean and sharp hit. A Rickey is gin, fresh lime juice, sugar and soda. It was so popular in the USA that, at one point, there was a national shortage of limes. It’s often said to have been one of Fitzgerald’s favourite tipples (he had many).

(The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

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W is for Whisky

Whisky is essential to cocktails like the Manhattan. A bottle, brand not specified, is passed around at Myrtle’s party: “A bottle of whiskey -a second one – was now in constant demand by all present, excepting Catherine’.

(The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

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