Hemingway: Nobel Prize Writer, World Class Drink Afficionado
He Never Let His Drinking Interfere With His Writing. And Vice Versa
“Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That’ll teach you to keep your mouth shut.”
Ernest Hemingway
The Man and the Myth
In his time Ernest Hemingway became the guy that every man wanted to be: successful writer of books, deep-sea fisherman, U-Boat chaser, ladies man, war correspondent, world traveler and indefatigable drinker who could hold his own in a bar or a boxing ring and who was admired everywhere as the king of swashbucklers. A man’s man, unafraid of danger and talented above his peers. He seemed larger than life. A whole lot larger in the minds of many. He became his own myth.
Some things about Hemingway expand the image. He also was a man who loved cats and took ordinary men and women into his circle right along with movie stars, famous bullfighters, heads of state and renowned authors. If you had courage, could hold your liquor and were honest, social rank didn’t seem to matter.
He appeared to enjoy as much life as he could cram into his limited number of years and placed writing books and having fun as the two top priorities of life. Not many have been able to push the envelope as he did, say nothing of getting away with it.
And He got away with it as long as he was able to keep at bay the reality that his brand was not the same as his identity. Those two things became mutually exclusive as he declined both mentally and physically. Doctors forced him to cutback drastically on alcohol, his sexual performance waned and he found it almost impossible to write anymore. At the Mayo Clinic he was given electroshock treatments which destroyed much of his ability to remember anything. Finally, depressed and no longer willing to be so diminished, he put a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. He was 61.
First He Invented Himself …
Ernest created for himself a writing style which cut straight to the bone, using the simplest words possible to structure sentences which revealed much while saying little. He was no friend to adjectives. If the water was cold it didn’t need to be very cold or freezing cold. If the sky was blue, he wouldn’t call it intensely blue or cerulean blue.
He re-wrote the ending to “A Farewell to Arms” 37 times until he believed it had reached perfection. Many think it is his best novel; a gripping, semi-autobiographical story of love and war, likely inspired by his service in the Spanish Civil War and his love affair with the nurse who helped him recover from serious wounds suffered in that conflict. He re-wrote “The Old Man and the Sea” 200 times before he sent it off for publication.
“He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.”
He typically wrote on yellow legal pads, using lead pencils which he sharpened, carefully brushing the wood flakes off the page into a cupped hand. He labored to get the exact words needed, often rewriting a fragment dozens of times.
In Spain, in 1923, when Ernest was a mere 24 years old, he started calling himself “Papa” and demanding that everyone else call him that, too. The name stuck, not least because he insisted that it had to. To many it seemed to tip his hand as a phony. In any case, it became part of his brand.
At some point in his life, when the fame had happened and the money had become ample enough to afford luxury, he must have believed that his brand was himself and that he had to polish it and keep it in top form. He went from being Ernest to being “Papa”.
…Then He Invented Drinking
Maybe the most storied daiquiri in the world is the one invented in Havana, in 1932, by the combined genius of legendary bartender Constantino Ribalaigua and his best-known customer, Papa Hemingway. The bar was the “Floridita” which Ribalaigua also owned. Hemingway named the drink, “El Floridita Number Three” because the first two trials didn’t measure up but the third one was a smash hit. Hemingway would order two of these at a time, thus the drink became the “Papa Doble” and that became famous as the “Hemingway Daiquiri”. Legend has it that Ernest downed 16 of these at one sitting which would have required 32 ounces of rum. I don’t know about you but forgive me if I remain skeptical.
You Can Do This
The Hemingway Daiquiri
Ingredients:
2 oz white rum
1 oz fresh lime juice (means you squeeze it)
1/2 oz fresh grapefruit juice (ditto)
1/4 oz maraschino liqueur *(see more below)
shaved or cubed ice
Serving:
coupe glass
Martini glass
Garnish:
slice of lime
Method:
Fill a blender/shaker one-quarter with ice, preferably shaved. Add rum, lime juice, grapefruit juice and maraschino liqueur to the blender or shaker. Shake vigorously for about thirty seconds, or until the drink is foaming. Strain into a chilled glass.
Ernest did not like sweet drinks so this one avoids sweetness. The maraschino liqueur is sharp with a nice bite and adds a delightful hint of almond to the drink. It has nothing whatever to do with those little sugary red things that come in jars. Maraschino (marasca) cheries come from the coast of Croatia and make up the ingredient for this aperitif. (If you can’t find this you can substitute Kirsch).
His favorite drinks were a basic scotch and soda and a dry martini. He once said that he liked a martini so cold that your hand would stick to the glass. He even froze cocktail onions before adding them to the drink. He also expressed a deep love of Ballantine Ale, especially when hot and sweaty after landing a big fish. And he almost worshiped a good wine.
When he was asked if he drank while he wrote he responded; “have you ever heard of anyone who drank while he worked? You’re thinking of Faulkner. He does sometimes and I can tell, right in the middle of the page, when he’s had his first one.”
Ernest said one time, “I drink to make other people more interesting.” But there may be other reasons. He was smart enough to know what he was doing but maybe not always why.
His mother put him in frilly dresses like a little girl for the first 3 years of his life, complete with lengthy curls and dainty ribbons. She pretended that he was “Ernestine” and she called him that and pretended that his sister was his twin. Common sense tells you this is one thing you never do to a male kid. Martha Gelhorn, one of his ex-wives, said he spent the rest of his life compensating for his childhood and resenting his mother. He made little effort to conceal the hatred he felt for her.
Later his father committed suicide. It may be that Earnest’s invention of the macho self he became demanded that he live it out and that drinking was, for him, not merely fuel for the fires of creativity but necessary to keep them burning.
Well, here you have some little buttons to punch to make yourself part of Eat Your History. I earnestly hope you’ll punch them. Many thanks, BC