Tequila Mockingbird (8 page)

5 fresh blueberries, washed

3 small, fresh strawberries, washed

8 sprigs fresh mint, washed

½ ounce lemon juice

1 ounce agave nectar

1½ ounces light rum

1 (12-ounce) can club soda

Muddle the berries, mint, juice, and nectar in a Collins glass. Add 2 handfuls ice and the rum, give a good stir, and top off with the club soda. Expect a rain dance of happy tears.

N
ext time you're marooned on an island, resist the temptation to call out, “Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink!” First of all, the other survivors don't need a clever quote, they need cocktails and a grief counselor. Second, you'll probably end up dying of dehydration, so your final words ought to be accurate. The
actual
phrase—“Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink”—is from an epic poem about bad weather, angry oceans, and pissed-off dead birds who aren't afraid to haunt a hull. (Moral of the story: leave God's creatures alone, skipper.) Celebrate your land legs with this limey twist on a salty classic—and seriously consider staying back on the beach.

Sea salt, for highball rim (
page 7
)

2 ounces lime juice

2 ounces grapefruit juice

1½ ounces gin

Rim a chilled highball glass in sea salt. Fill the glass with ice, pour in the ingredients, and give a good stir. When you're sobered up, matey, head back to the lookout deck—and watch out for low-flying birds.

T
he plot that started a dozen TV franchises: throw a group of disparate souls on an island after their airplane crashes, and, in a Clearasil-ready twist, make sure none of them are old enough to drive, let alone drink. If you went to a high school that favored broadened minds over banned books, you'll remember devouring this fable of order and disorder, schoolboys-turned-savages, and one very trippy pig's head. Recommended reading during your next flight to Hawaii, escape to the galley if things get bumpy and throw together this Polynesian nerve-calmer. It's fit to be served in a conch shell, but don't turn your back on the other passengers.

2 ounces cranberry juice

2 ounces orange juice

1½ ounces light rum

1 ounce coconut rum

1 teaspoon grenadine syrup (
page 11
)

Orange slice or pineapple wedge, for garnish (optional)

Shake the ingredients with ice—odds are, it'll
all
turn out bloody red—and pour everything, including the ice, into a Collins glass. Get creative with the tropical garnishes: pineapples, oranges, eye of piglet. . . .

A
Ten Commandments
—size cast populates this rule-breaking modern classic, infamous for sprawling prose, endless footnotes,
¹
and a madcap depiction of the future.
²
Confounding and delightful in equal measure,
Jest
takes place in the 'burbs of Boston,
³
between a halfway house and a nearby tennis academy. Wallace had one of his central characters take his own life, and in a tragic true-life twist, Wallace did the same, leaving behind a magnum opus that will be argued and digested for infinity. Serve up a tennis-ball-yellow cocktail that mimics the zest and bounce of one fallen literary legend.

2 ounces vodka

1 ounce limoncello

½ ounce lemon juice

Minding that tennis elbow, shake the ingredients with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Head back to the court, sport, and never give up on your game.

¹
Just like this, but they appeared at the end of the book—over four hundred of 'em!

²
Time is marked with corporate sponsorships, as in Year of the Perdue Wonderchicken.

³
Wallace briefly studied philosophy at Harvard (who
hasn't
?) and later taught at Emerson.

W
hat is it with white guys and their imperialistic, waterborne adventures? Yet again, we encounter a Western classic that drops a “civilized” man (Charles Marlow of England) into the middle of a foreign land (the Congo wilds, which stand to be colonized). Things get sticky in the retelling:
Heart of Darkness
is as open to celebration as it is to question, with readers and critics wondering if it's a novel
about
prejudice . . . or just a prejudiced novel. (The natives don't even get dialogue!) Such themes are above our pay grade, so we'll just stick to asking the questions, leaving the room, and coming back with a drink as dark and misty as the awkward silence hanging around us.

1½ ounces blackberry liqueur

½ ounce gin

½ ounce lemon juice

As quickly as possible—the guests need you in the living room, and
for the love of God when did the music stop playing?—
shake all ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

H
ell hath no midlife crisis like a stockbroker who wakes up one day, looks at his wife and kids at breakfast, and announces he's taking a one-way trip to Paris to pursue life as a painter.
Now could somebody please pass Daddy the pancakes
? Along the way, Maugham's artist—a stand-in for famed real-life painter Paul Gauguin—makes the perfectly logical geographical progression from Paris to Marseilles to Tahiti, where he finally finds contentment and his own kind of success (never mind his leprosy in the end). Sip on this “moonshine” cooler next time you need inspiration to break out of that cubicle and head to the tropics—even if only in your dreams.

1½ ounces cheap whiskey

Splash of pineapple juice

Squeeze of coconut cream (like Coco Reál Cream of Coconut)

Pour the ingredients over ice in a rocks glass (or travel mug!). Give a good stir, grab your
Tahitian for Dummies
guide, and head for the airport; you're goin' places.

W
idely lauded as Hemingway's most accomplished work,
A Farewell to Arms
firmly established his spare, just-the-facts prose. Little wonder: before doing time as an ambulance driver in World War I, Hemingway was a junior reporter in Kansas City. Much of
Farewell
draws directly from Hemingway's own life abroad, from mortar shell injuries to angelic nurses. Nobody said war was easy, but just when you think the narrative is gonna land nice and quiet in Switzerland, Hemingway throws a friggin' dead
baby
into the mix. We salute Hemingway's complicated time in the Italian campaign with that country's own amaretto. Take this one like a soldier: sour but fighting.

2 ounces amaretto

½ ounce lemon juice

1 teaspoon granulated sugar

Combine the amaretto, lemon juice, and sugar in a shaker with ice. Shake well and strain over fresh ice in a rocks glass. Best enjoyed after returning home from a stint overseas, with bonus points awarded if you can get your girlfriend—or boyfriend!—into a nurse's uniform.

T
he most celebrated work by Latin America's prince of prose,
One Hundred Years of Solitude
traces one family's multigenerational triumphs and devastations in establishing a South American settlement. Pressing hard on the symbolism pedal, Márquez uses the colors yellow and gold like a weaver, threading death and wealth throughout a story of inevitable decline. We borrow his palette, pairing South America's most famous beer—Cusqueña, the “gold of Incas”—with a cheery, yellow lemonade. The result is so lightweight, you can water your solitude down with a hundred of these—give or take your dignity.

3 ounces carbonated lemonade (like Martinelli's Sparkling Classic Lemonade)

8 ounces light beer (like Cusqueña)

2 dashes Angostura bitters

Pour the lemonade into a chilled pint glass. Fill to the top with beer and add a dash or two of bitters. Now, sit back and prepare for life's ups and downs . . . you know, with another drink standing by.