Nerdy Carrie: I’m Opening a Literary Cocktails Bar

Last December, one of my favorite magazines, Reader’s Digest, plugged a great coffee table book that I just had to have. Sadly, Jeff didn’t get the “hinty-hint-hint” (read: lots of shameless hints) that I wanted, nay, needed this book. When it didn’t appear under the Christmas tree, I took matters into my own hands and grabbed a copy from Amazon. Take that for ignoring the not-so-subtle hints, husband.

The book is called Tequila Mockingbird: Cocktails with a Literary Twist by Tim Federle. Now people, I have no idea who Federle is, but he had me at The Turn of the Screwdriver. I mean, this guy combines two of my favorite things, books and alcohol.

The premise of the book is cocktail recipes with clever literary titles. He gives a basic snarky description of each book (even calling out the boring ones, thank you!), a recipe, and brief instructions. There is no highbrow literary analysis going on here…in fact, it’s a refreshing point of view to see someone who is obviously intelligent and well-read embrace the idea that, for example, the love triangle in Ethan Frome could’ve been easily solved if only the trio had sat down with each other and enjoyed a drink, already.

Reader’s Digest teased me with titles such as: The Last of the Mojitos; Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margarita; Bridget Jones’s Daquiri; and The Picture of Dorian Grey Goose. Therefore, inspired by the mere plug of this book in December of last year, I asked my nerdy, book-loving Facebook friends (credits below) to join me in creating cocktails that should be named in this book (since I, as yet, didn’t own a copy until later). Well, my true and sincere hope is that someday Mr. Federle can realize he has fans and create the sequel to this genius book (using, of course, my friends’ ideas, featured here.)

1. Fifty Shades of Grey Goose
2. A Tale of Two Martinis
3. Absolute, Absalom
4. Love in the Time of Cosmopolitan
5. The Old Man and the Sea Breeze
6. Tom Collins Sawyer
7. She Stoops to Conquer Cosmopolitans
8. (Sex) On the Beach
9. Pina Colada and Prejudice
10. To the Light(Beer)house
11. Of Mice and Martinis
12. Romeo and Gimlet
13. Chardonnay’s Web
14. Jameson and the Jim Bean Stalk
15. Brave New Wine
16. Jameson Eyre
17. Wuthering Hennessy
18. Franken(beer)stein
19. The Secret Life of Beer
20. Atlas Shinerbocked
21. The Old Fashioned and the Sea
22. A Farewell to Amaretto (*actually in the book!)
23. Life of Pi-lsner
24. Romeo and (Mint) Julep (*actually in the book, minus Mint)
25. The Curious Incident of the Drunk and the Passed Out
26. The Beer Thief
27. Lady Chatterly’s Liquor
28. MacBeer
29. In Cold Bloody Mary
30. The Blind Cider
31. The Diary of Anheuser Busch
32. Catching Fireballs
33. Harry PINTer and the Half-Gin-Half-Tonic
34. Jameson and the Giant Peach Schnopps
35. Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Single Barrels
36. Smirnoff’s List
37. Ketel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
38. The Princess and the Pinot
39. Crown Royal Tenenbaums
40. The King of Beers and I
41. Moby Dickel
42. The Catcher and the Rye Whiskey
43. Little House on the Prairie Fire
44. The Madras of Avalon
45. Wuthering High Lifes
46. Rumplemintz-stiltskin
47. Two Gentlemen Jack of Verona
48. Titus Andrunkus
49. A Midsummer Night’s Drink
50. As You Like It (no change needed)
51. The Da Vinci Cognac
52. A Rum with a View
53. The Devil Drinks Vodka
54. The Princess and the PBR
55. Through the Looking Glass of Wine

I know, I know, my friends are hilarious, well-read geniuses. After this post, I totally planned to open a bar here in Arkansas where people could absolutely talk about great books and drink at the same time.  Would more people be open to reading the classics if this were possible? Would the menu then expand to fun bar food like Chips and Don Quixote Queso? Then, I realized that, like many others’ night-out pipe dreams of opening an awesome bar, mine would most likely end in miserable financial failure. And I also realized that people can drink and talk about books in any bar. So, Federle did things properly: he put this in a book instead of creating his bar/library. I actually wonder if the bar/library was the original idea…

Please feel free to comment below and add to the ever-growing list of literary cocktails, and we can all nerd out and raise a glass together. Cheers!

Many thanks to my Facebook friends (and a few who joined in on the action that I didn’t even know!): Natasha Vaitekunas-Willis, Dina Bozsoki, Allison Smith, Tara Baker, Casey Campbell Minton, Dave Walters, Monty Wilson, Gina Yolanda, and Melissa Sutherlin Prince. You rock!