Write on cocktails

Famously, Laurie Lee, one of the nation’s most beloved novelists, wrote ‘on wine’.  Whether or not he was ever drunk in charge of a typewriter is unclear but one has to entertain the possibility that, as a poet, he typed without due care and attention.  He did his writing in the Greek Islands, presumably because in the days before bargain booze, affordable New World wines or even Blue Nun, this was the only way he could become sufficiently inebriated to welcome the Muse should she come to visit.  Also, proximity to Mt Parnassus may have helped.

Rock stars smoke, inject, inhale and presumably occasionally insert for inspiration.  Writers drink.  Christ alone knows why, as excessive booze normally leads to feelings of alienation from the world and a profound sense of being under-appreciated and misunderstood, all of which is achievable through the simple act of publishing a slim volume of verse.  Alcohol also inhibits early morning creativity, and certain writers famously were at their creative peak at first light.  Presumably this meant they could post the latest chapter of their novel off to their publishers at eleven in the morning on their way to the pub.

However, in the spirit of enquiry G&P is embarking on a five-part special to explore the effects of various types of alcohol on writing, beyond those of not being able to remember that fantastic idea for a novel you had last night (something about a boy wizard?) just before you passed out, or not being able to decipher the notes scrawled on a beermat that could be a poem, or somebody’s e mail address.

We conclude with...cocktails!

There are two types of cocktails, divided along gender lines, like the literature that they inspire.

First, let's deal with cocktails where alcohol is mixed with soft drinks and fruit drinks to the extent that the drinker can no longer taste the alcohol.  This is quite different to the drinker no longer feeling the effects of the alcohol, unless the drinker is the sort of person who lifts up her shirt to show the room her bra after three glasses of seven up anyway.  Fruity, or 'long' cocktails were invented with the express purpose of getting ladies drunk without their confronting the reality of downing hard liquor.  If Elizabeth Bennett drank cocktails, the woman would hammer Long Island Ice Teas.  It's fruity fun in a bonnet.

Honourable exception must be made for cocktails like Cuba Libre (rum and coke if you're an American), where liquor is mixed with a soft, often sweet, sometimes fizzy, drink.  If the drink is made correctly, that is equal parts spirit and mixer, then it's not for the bonneted classes.

Likewise, certain classics are exempt from appearing on the 'girls night out' two for one laminated (for easy cleaning) cocktail list at your local cocktail lounge or Wetherspoons.  These are gin and tonic because of its medicinal properties in warding off malaria and sobriety in an increasingly torrid world, and also Bloody Mary or, as many refer to it, 'ahh, thank God, breakfast!'.  The Bloody Mary is at the extreme end of the exemption scale, not only is it a famously tasteless spirit mixed with an overpowering and sweet juice (although vegetable, not fruit, so it's practically a smoothie) and then further disguised with a fish based condiment, but served correctly it also has half a hedgerow shoved into the glass.

Cocktails with things protruding from them are an indication that this is a ladies' beverage.  Again, there are exceptions, if the glass in front of you is home to, as well as something smelling alarmingly of strawberry, either a cherry or a lit sparkler, then you had better be wearing a sparkly dress when consuming it.  If it has an olive, olives or any other form of vegetation that nobody honestly eats for pleasure, then it's a mans' drink.

Which brings us to the second sort of cocktail.  This is where one sort of spirit is mixed with another sort of spirit and served in a special sort of glass, usually a small one, for the very good reason that knocking back three trebles in thirty minutes is something that is usually only done by on-duty darts players, yet when liquor is presented thus in a dainty glass, it's socially acceptable.

Mens' cocktails taste like petrol.  Although the second one always tastes better.  This is because the idea of what Matt Groening described as a 'sophisticated adult beverage' is to remind you that you, an adult male, are having a drink.  The taste is not unlike the first drink of beer you had as a child, awful.

That's why these drinks are often served chilled, if your tongue is numb enough then you may be able to drink your first one quickly enough to make more seem like a great idea, without feeling the need to rinse your mouth out with Irn Bru and move onto something with a cherry in it.

They are also served up with dashes of things.  This is to make something that tastes toxic taste even more toxic, but in an aromatic way.  Bitters are sophistication in a bottle.

The purpose of olives is to line the stomach.

Broadly, if you are drinking a strawberry concoction, you are likely to write, and read, literature either about feisty independent women who have social and sexual misadventures but manage to land the perfect relationship and job by the last chapter, gay friend optional.  Please note though a worrying trend of such female characters meeting for coffee rather than shots to discuss the state of their love life.

If you are drinking something that tastes like aftershave made from olives, then you are likely to write and read fiction about spies, honourable criminals or knight errant charming bastards.  These men also drink coffee, but only to shift hangovers the size of Mount Olympus, when on stake outs, or when in exotic foreign locations and the coffee has the taste and consistency of tar, in a good way.

Sweeping generalisations certainly, but the cocktail is no place for subtlety.  For all that has been written about 'mixologists', sloshing together some booze like a toddler with access to a mini-bar is less the recipe for something to delight the senses and more like the precursor to a night of some poor life choices.

But it also produces fiction that, in different ways, hits the spot.