Jews Who Booze
Match a drink to a novelist


HTMLGIANT comes up with various cocktails to match particular novelists—Franzen’s Blurry Gin n’ Tonic involves gin, tonic, a lime twist, and the removal of your glasses; Sartre’s Absent Absinthe entails a half-empty absinthe glass, a sugar cube, and leaving the table, never to return. Here are some more concoctions:
• The Shteyngart Shandy: Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout and lemon seltzah (thanks to Bambi Shlomovich on that one).
• HTMLGIANT provides the recipe for Roth’s Gin n’ Jews (gin, orange juice, and grapefruit juice), but executive editor Jesse Oxfeld notes that his cocktail would contain liver, crushed.
• Here are Dan Klein’s “Instructions” for the Guri-tonic War: Gin, tonic and penny served in a balloon. Understand you hold a drink.
• And Dan’s Dreyfus Affair: Equal parts Champagne, Bordeux, Chartreuse, Jewish parents. Shake drink while accusing it of treachery. Let sit locked in cabinet for a decade. Unlock and serve with an olive.
• The Icy Bashevis Singer has cold slivovitz and pickled beets.
• The Eggnog Ferber is imbibed on Hanukkah, not Christmas.
• The Jonathan Saffron Foer is a Sephardic spirit, a sangria featuring Spanish wine and enticing spices.
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Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.