15 Cocktails inspired by literary greats

Many of the world’s greatest writers lived fast and drank hard. From Beat writer Jack Kerouac’s passion for Margaritas, which he developed a fondness for during his travels in Mexico, to the 18 whisky shots that led to Welsh author Dylan Thomas’ demise, writers and booze go together like gin and tonic.

Zelda Fitzgerald

Keen to celebrate female literary greats of past and present, creative writing students Laura Becherer and Cameo Marlatt created a cocktail book featuring 50 recipes inspired by famous female writers from around the world.

From Jane Austen to JK Rowling, A Drink of One’s Own charts the lives of these influential women and features a cocktail recipe alongside their biography designed to be made at home.

The idea for the book came about one night when Becherer and Marlatt were drinking at their regular haunt in Glasgow and discussing how history has misrepresented writers like Zelda Fitzgerald and Mary Shelley, who still dwell in the shadows of their husbands’ success.

“Drinking culture is especially linked to male writers like Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald – women have historically been pushed away from the realm as a whole,” Becherer says.

Read on for cocktail recipes inspired by 15 of the greatest female writers of all time. The biographies in this piece have been written by Becherer and Marlatt.

The glorious illustrations of the authors are by Savannah Marlatt. 

Jane Austen

She may have been writing in Regency England, but Jane Austen’s social comedy and piercing insight into human nature has yet to go out of style. With characteristic nuance, depth and humour, Austen gives female relationships center stage in her novels, from Pride and Prejudice to Sense and Sensibility.

Beneath her light-hearted marriage plots, we see Austen’s heroines struggle to achieve the social and financial stability of marriage in a culture that denies them independence.

The Jane Austen cocktail – mix 2 fluid ounces of gin, 2 dashes of rose water and 2 teaspoons of Earl Grey tea syrup in a shaker and serve in a chilled Martini glass topped with rosé Champagne.

This gin-based cocktail is topped with pink champagne to resurrect Austen’s sparkling wit. It’s light, feminine and it packs the punch of an underhanded drawing room insult delivered straight from Elizabeth Bennet’s mouth.

Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley was the daughter of early feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft, as well as a founder of the science fiction genre. Her most famous work, Frankenstein, examines the themes of science versus nature and ethics in science.

Shelley cited a nightmare as the origin of Frankenstein, which she told as a ghost story at the request of some friends, including Lord Byron, during a party. She was encouraged to draw the narrative out into a novel.

At the time Shelley’s husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, was thought to have exercised a great deal of conceptual and editorial power over the work, though she denied any major influence.

The Mary Shelley cocktail

Mix 1 ½ fluid ounces of Port and the same measure of Scotch in a shaker. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a twist of orange peel.

The wine-based cocktail features Port and Scotch to give it extra warmth and kick. We can imagine Shelley drinking this while curled up next to a roaring fire putting pen to paper during a storm as she fleshed out the tale that was to become one of science fiction’s most formative narratives.

Emily Dickinson

Though she is now thought of as one of the most distinct and formative voices in American literature, 19^th century poet Emily Dickinson was almost entirely unrecognised during her lifetime, having published less than a dozen poems. Those works, and the collections published after her death, were heavily edited to conform to the stylistic conventions of the time.

Today her poetry is known for its treatment of nature, its preoccupation with mortality and its unusual punctuation, most notably a generous use of the dash. Dickinson was also a prolific letter writer, owing largely to her reclusive and introverted nature. It is said that she rarely left her house, or even her room, in the final years of her life. However, she was a dedicated gardener and amateur botanist, hence the inclusion of a few ‘dashes’ of lavender bitters in the cocktail.

The Emily Dickinson cocktail

Shake 2 fluid ounces of amontillado Sherry with ¾ ounce of elderflower liqueur and 2 dashes of lavender bitters. Strain into a chilled Sherry glass and garnish with a violet or a sprig of lavender.

Having once described her eyes as like “Sherry in the glass”, the cocktail features an amontillado base combined with elderflower liqueur to create a drink that is deep amber in tone and floral in flavour. Simple yet complex, the cocktail is the perfect tribute to one of literature’s greatest poets.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee is one of the greatest American authors of all time. Although Go Set a Watchman was recently released, we still think of Lee as primarily a one-novel genius – a perception justified by the fact that both novels were originally one. To Kill a Mockingbird tells a powerful story of racial inequality from the point of view of a child, and has become a classic of modern American literature.

The Harper Lee cocktail

Shake 1 ½ ounces of Bourbon and the same measure of peach liqueur and a dash of bitters. Pour into a flute and top with Champagne then garnish with a peach slice.

Lee’s cocktail is inspired by the American South, drawing on peaches and Bourbon to create a full-flavoured drink. Bitters prevents it from becoming overly sweet, and the Champagne brings all the elements into a balance.

Virginia Woolf

The inspiration for the title of this book, Virginia Woolf ’s A Room of One’s Own is a classic of early feminist literature that explores the financial, social and psychological limitations faced by women writers throughout history.

Within the progressive environment of the Bloomsbury Group, Woolf wrote novels like To the Lighthouse and Mrs Dalloway, known for their lyricism, formal innovation, and treatment of women’s lived experience. She explored lesbianism in Orlando, the gender-swapping title character based on Woolf ’s lover Vita Sackville-West.

The Virginia Woolf cocktail

Combine 2 ounces of gin and 4 ounces of lemonade into a long glass filled with ice with a slice of cucumber and a twist of lime.

Dorothy Parker

While fond of whisky sours, outspoken American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist Dorothy Parker was an avid Martini fan. Celebrated for her acerbic wit, Parker once said in jest: “I like to have a Martini, two at the very most. After three I’m under the table, after four I’m under my host.”

Writing regularly for The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Vogue, Parker’s screenplays led to two Academy Award nominations. Her literary career began in 1914 when her first poem was published in Vanity Fair. There, she met several of the authors with whom she would found the famous Algonquin Round Table, a group of collaborators who met regularly at New York’s Algonquin Hotel.

Soon enough, she and her wit had developed a national reputation, and she became famous for her sharp-tongued comedic poems on the topics of romance, death and, of course, drinking.

Though she is best known for her verse, she was also a skilled short story writer and an accomplished screenwriter. Parker remains an incredibly popular writer. The Portable Dorothy Parker stands alongside the Bible and Shakespeare as the only of Viking Press’s ‘Portable Library’ series to remain continuously in print.

The Dorothy Parker cocktail

Combine 2 ounces of rye, ¾ ounce of sweet vermouth, ½ teaspoon of black pepper syrup and 2 dashes of bitters in a shaker. Strain into a cold Martini glass and garnish with a maraschino cherry.

Nothing but a classic Manhattan cocktail would suit this New Yorker, but we’ve added a black pepper twist as a wink to her wise-cracking humour.

Simone de Beauvoir

French writer and intellectual Simone de Beauvoir is best known for her classic work of feminist philosophy The Second Sex, published in 1949, which addresses the history of women’s oppression and contains her famous statement on gender performativity, that “one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman”.

Born in 1908 into a bourgeois family, de Beauvoir rebelled against the gender and class expectations of her time to pursue a life of intellectualism, an experience recounted in her 1958 autobiography Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter.

It also recalls her early days with existential philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, with whom she would have a lifelong relationship. Although she is known for her critical theory, de Beauvoir also wrote novels, including She Came to Stay and The Mandarins.

The Simone de Beauvoir cocktail

Combine 1 ounce of brandy and an equal measure of Port into a cocktail shaker with ½ a fluid ounce of honey cinnamon syrup and ¼ of an ounce of lemon juice Strain into a chilled brandy snifter and garnish with a twist of lemon.

The next time you’re sitting down for some serious feminist philosophising, grab a brandy snifter and arm yourself with this elegant cocktail. The cocktail is a rich blend of brandy and Port, with cinnamon syrup for a touch of spice and lemon juice for bite.

Zelda Fitzgerald

Zelda Fitzgerald, the original flapper, was married to American author F. Scott Fitzgerald, best know for The Great Gatsby. In addition to basing many of his female characters on Zelda, and using their conversations for dialogue in his novels, Fitzgerald lifted entire passages from Zelda’s journals to furnish his creative work and based Tender is the Night on their volatile relationship.

When she tried to become creative in her own right, through ballet and writing, Scott grew jealous. She was eventually committed to 
an asylum, and diagnosed with schizophrenia. While in the asylum, Zelda wrote her only novel, Save Me the Waltz based loosely on her life.

The Zelda Fitzgerald cocktail

Mix 1 ½ ounces of gin, 1 ounce of honey, 1 ounce of ginger beer and ½ ounce of lemon juice in a shaker. Strain into a highball glass filled with ice.

In Zelda’s honour, this gin-based cocktail twists on a Prohibition classic.

Sylvia Plath

Born in Boston in 1932, Sylvia Plath published her first poems as child and achieving academic success as a student at Smith College, despite battling severe depression. Her semi-autobiographical novel The Bell Jar reflects these experiences, depicting an ambitious young woman’s struggle with mental illness and patriarchal oppression in 1950s America.

While studying at Cambridge University in 1956, Plath met and married fellow poet Ted Hughes. Their tumultuous relationship is the source of much 
debate over Hughes’ influence on Plath’s writing and mental health.

Plath’s most famous poetry collection, Ariel, was written in the period following her separation from Hughes, and published posthumously after her suicide in 1963. Plath’s literary accomplishments include helping to establish the confessional genre of poetry, and winning a posthumous Pulitzer Prize in 1982. She stands remains one of the 20^th century’s most popular poets.

The Sylvia Plath cocktail

Shake 1 ½ ounces of gin, 1 teaspoon of grenadine, 1 tablespoon of cream and an egg white into a shaker. Pour 1 tablespoon of raspberry coulis into the bottom of a Martini glass. Strain the cocktail over the top and garnish with a raspberry.

This is a raspberry twist on an American classic, the Pink Lady. Like Plath’s oeuvre, this punchy drink has suffered historical critique by male cocktail critics for its feminine name and appearance. With just enough grenadine and cream to create its signature pink hue, this is a gin Martini in a frock.

Karen Blixen

You might know this Danish author better as Isak Dinesen, the pen name
 under which she wrote her most famous book, Out of Africa, which was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford.

Published in 1937, the lyrical memoir chronicles the seventeen years Blixen spent on her coffee plantation in Kenya, and provides an insightful record of colonial influence in the area. She also wrote fiction such as Seven Gothic Tales and Babette’s Feast.

She usually wrote first in English, before translating her own work into Danish, was admired by Ernest Hemingway and Truman Capote. She was considered for the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature but became ineligible when she died that year.

The Karen Blixen cocktail

Shake 1 ounce of vodka with 1 ounce of cold espresso , 1 ounce of amaretto and 1 ½ tablespoons of cream. Pour into a chilled Martini glass and run a twist of orange peel around the rim then toss into the glass as a garnish.

Tipping its hat to Blixen’s beloved coffee plantation, this cocktail skips the coffee liqueur and goes straight for the real thing. A cool blend of espresso, vodka, amaretto and cream, this caffeine kick is a fitting tribute to this Danish author.

Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou’s awards are too numerous to list, and she has received over fifty honorary degrees. She is best known for her 1969 autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which deals with the racism and rape she experienced as a child. It was the first of seven works that she would complete during her lifetime, writing in an episodic and unique literary style that has changed the face of American memoir.

Though she is better known for her prose, Angelou considered herself a poet and playwright before she started writing her autobiographies, and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for her 1971 collection Just Give me a Cool Drink of Water ‘fore I Diiie. Her civil rights activism saw her working with Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Maya Angelou cocktail

Shake 1 ½ ounces of white rum, 2 ounces of pineapple juice, 1 teaspoon of grenadine and the same amount of amontillado Sherry together then strain into a lowball glass and garnish with a maraschino cherry.

Angelou’s writing process involved locking herself in a hotel room with a bottle of Sherry, so it features in her eponymous sip – a sweet and uplifting blend of white rum and pineapple juice.

Margaret Atwood

Born in Ottowa in 1939, Atwood writes across a variety of genres, from the speculative fiction of The Handmaid’s Tale to the historical exploration of Alias Grace to the layered narratives of The Blind Assassin.

She is one of the most versatile writers in the English language: she rewrote mythology to give Penelope a voice, put realist twists on fairy tales, is a poet, and has published volumes of essays. She adapts her writing to keep on top of ever-changing social and political issues and never shies away from unapologetic feminism.

The Margaret Atwood cocktail

Melt 8 tablespoons of butter in a pan over a medium heat. Add ¾ cup of brown sugar and 1 tablespoon of nutmeg. Stir until all the sugar has melted.

Add 75cl of brandy and vanilla to saucepan and stir continuously. Add boiling water and cinnamon sticks, stir. Return to burner. Add maple syrup, stir over low heat to mix. Leave pot on very low heat to keep warm, serve in warm mugs.

The Atwood cocktail features hot buttered rum and maple syrup. Perfect for cozy winter nights when you settle in for a night with her latest book.

Isabelle Allende

Born in Peru in 1942, Allende grew up in Chile and is now based in the US. She writes in Spanish but her novels have been translated the world over. Allende specialises in historical fiction with elements of magical realism woven in. She received Chile’s National Literature Prize in 2010.

Some of Allende’s best-known works are The House of Spirits, City of Beasts and Island Beneath the Sea. Her novels contain many threads that braid together to tell one compelling story. Many of her works feature strong female characters.

The Isabelle Allende cocktail

Whisk together 1 ounce of Port, 1 ounce of whisky, 1 egg yolk, 1 teaspoon of sugar and a dash of Angostura bitters until completely blended. Pour into a glass over a generous amount of ice. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and cocoa powder.

Allende’s cocktail is a version of a Chilean classic. Port, whisky, egg yolk, and spice combine into a heady, rich drink.

JK Rowling

Born in Gloucestershire in 1965, J.K. Rowling is often dismissed as being ‘just’ a children’s author, but the Harry Potter series is one of the most famous and popular worldwide, selling over 400 million copies. The universal love of these books with children and adults alike has made Rowling richer than the Queen.

In 2012 she released The Casual Vacancy, her first book aimed at adults. She has published a number of novels under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith including The Cuckoo’s Calling.

This cocktail offers an adult twist on butterbeer in the form of a butterscotch Martini.

Zadie Smith

One of England’s most popular living novelists, Zadie Smith was born in London to a Jamaican mother and English father. The 21-year-old Smith’s incomplete first novel was picked up after a bidding war between several publishers while she was still studying at Cambridge.

The comedic and expansive White Teeth was an instant commercial and critical success, cementing Smith’s reputation as a rising literary star. The novel follows three London families from diverse ethnic backgrounds and examines the impact of immigration on cultural identity.

Smith’s second novel, The Autograph Man, and her third, On Beauty, have also enjoyed success, with the latter being shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and winning the 2006 Orange Prize for Fiction. Smith’s latest work, Swing Time, is a story of how friendship, music and identity shape who we are as individuals.

The Zadie Smith cocktail

Shake up 1 ½ ounces of Tequila, 1 ounce of fresh grapefruit juice and ½ an ounce of honey syrup then strain into a chilled Martini glass.

Capturing the zing of postmodern irony characteristic of Smith’s work, this tart cocktail is a take on the Brown Derby, switching Tequila for Bourbon.