Holly tapped an empty martini glass. 'Two more, my darling Mr Bell.' Photograph: Corbis
Following on from the Christmas cocktail post it seems rather mean-spirited not to also offer up a few literary recipes for New Year's Eve. December 31 is the season's cooler cousin, after all - and yes, even though I know that most supposedly cool things are rubbish (New Year's Eve parties included), the human capacity for self-delusion means that I'm still busy hoping (against hope) that this year will be different.
It obviously is different, for some people, too. Take Truman Capote and F Scott Fitzgerald, for instance - two of the best writers of party scenes out there. (Who isn't seduced by the music drifting from Jay Gatsby's house through the summer nights? Or the sight of his dusk-lit gardens, where "men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars"?) Personally, I can never read chapter three of The Great Gatsby without feeling a pang of party-envy. I get it with Breakfast at Tiffany's, too, with Holly's chaotic drinks gatherings - and the root of my jealousy lies, I think, in the suspicion that these two men could write their parties so well not just because they were great writers, but also because they were real-life frequenters of fabulous shindigs.
Anyway, I'm going to leave you with a few cocktail recipes, coupled with Truman and F Scott quotes. If you feel like it, please post your own all-time party writer (any scenes from Edith Wharton? Hemingway? There must be some Beat contenders...).
Alternatively, any readerly/writerly resolutions for the New Year? Going to start that epic narrative poem? Planning to tackle Proust? Write it here: then it's written in stone and there's no getting out of it.
French 75
Gloria, going beyond her accustomed limit of four precisely timed cocktails, led them on as gay and joyous a bacchanal as they had ever known, disclosing an astonishing knowledge of ballet steps, and singing songs which she confessed had been taught her by her cook when she was innocent and seventeen. (F Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and The Damned)
• 1oz gin • 1/4oz lemon juice • 1/8oz sugar syrup • 5oz chilled dry cava/champagne
Pop the gin, lemon juice and syrup into a cocktail shaker, along with some ice. Shake, then strain into a champagne flute. Top with champagne.
Pisco Sour
"At one point, Madame Sapphia Spanella, the coloratura and roller-skating enthusiast who lived on the first floor, circulated a petition among the brownstone's other tenants asking them to join her in having Miss Golightly evicted: she was, said Madame Spanella, 'morally objectionable' and the 'perpetrator of all-night gatherings than endanger the safety and sanity of her neighbours'. But her petition failed, and as April approached May, the open-windowed, warm spring nights were lurid with the party sounds, the loud-playing gramophone, and martini laughter that emanated from Apt. 2." (Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's)
• 1 1/2 oz pisco • 1/2 oz fresh lemon juice • 1 tsp sugar • 1/2 egg white • 1 dash Angostura bitters
Pop all of the ingredients, along with some ice, into a cocktail shaker. Give it a good shake, strain into a cocktail glass and serve.
Black Velvet
"After having given each other vivid pictures of millionaires dining at Delmonico's and throwing away $50 bills after their first quart of champagne, both men thought privately of becoming waiters. In fact, Key's narrow brow was secreting a resolution to ask his brother to get him a job. 'A waiter can drink up all the champagne those fellas leave in bottles,' suggested Rose with some relish, and then added as an afterthought, 'Oh, boy!'" (F Scott Fitzgerald, Tales of the Jazz Age)
• 5oz chilled stout • 5oz chilled Champagne
Pour stout into a champagne flute. Add champagne carefully (it mustn't mix with the stout). Serve.
Dirty martini
"'Divorce him? Of course I never divorced him. I was only fourteen, for God's sake. It couldn't have been legal.' Holly tapped an empty martini glass. 'Two more, my darling Mr Bell.'" (Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's)
• 2oz gin • 1 tablespoon dry vermouth • 2 tablespoons brine from the olive jar • 1 green olive
Place the vermouth, gin and olive brine in a mixing glass, along with some ice. Stir slowly, for around 10 seconds, before straining the result into the waiting martini glass. Add the olive. Serve.
