Ernest Hemingway was born 115 years ago today which makes it an excellent day to raise a toast to the intrepid world traveler, genius author and robust cocktail enthusiast.
Growing up, I wasn’t a fan. I blame having to spend hours analyzing “Hills Like White Elephants,” in 10th grade. (Followed by Steinbeck’s ultra-depressing “Of Mice and Men,” I mean, are they trying to put kids off reading?)
But then I started traveling and suddenly I found myself following in the footsteps of Hemingway, most of which led to bars.
I went to Madrid and found this restaurant:
We lunched upstairs at Botin´s. It is one of the best restaurants in the world. We had roast young suckling pig and drank rioja alta. Brett did not eat much. She never ate much. I ate a very big meal and drank three bottles of rioja alta.–”The Sun Also Rises”
Side note: I drank a great deal of rioja, although not three bottles, and then made the fatal mistake of following it up with my first (and last) shot of Jack Daniels. Lord, what a sorrowful morning followed as the old hymn has it.
I saw my first bullfight and looked up Hemingway’s 1923 newspaper account of his first time.
[The bull] came out all in a rush, big, black and white, weighing over a ton, and moving with a soft gallop. Just as he came out the sun seemed to dazzle him for an instant. He stood as though he were frozen, his great crest of muscle up, firmly planted, his eyes looking around, his horns pointed forward, black and white and sharp as porcupine quills. Then he charged. And as he charged, I suddenly saw what bullfighting is all about.
I’ll be honest, my reaction was more: I suddenly saw what being a vegan is all about.
I went to Venice, and, naturally, stopped in at Harry’s Bar where Hemingway used to drink the dry martinis (as in basically no vermouth) and the Bellini, a cocktail of sparkling wine and peach puree. The Bellini was 18 euros. Which is crazy expensive. So I just watched other people drinking theirs. Because I am cheap.
The Hemingway Bar at the Ritz in Paris where he drank still more martinis has been undergoing renovations for the past two years so I haven’t been there yet but I did go to Harry’s New York Bar in Paris, another Hemingway haunt. (Yeah, they’re two different Harrys.) I actually had a modern-day celebrity sighting, the guy who plays Jimmy the cute blonde footman on “Downton Abbey.” But I did not get a photo. Because I am bashful.
When I went to Peru this year I thought, Well, this is one place I won’t find the “Hemingway Drank Here,” sign.
Not a bit of it.
I strolled around Lima doing a “Best Places to Drink a Pisco Sour” story and what did I find? The bar at the Hotel Gran Bolivar where Hemingway is said to have set the record for drinking that very same cocktail. In fact, they still have two sizes of glasses, the regular and the oversized “Catedral” glass that Hemingway favored.
If you want to learn more, cocktail historian Philip Greene has gone to the trouble of researching Hemingway cocktails in his cleverly titled book, To Have and Have Another.
Now, maybe if they’d given us that to study in 10th grade I would have developed a literary taste for Hemingway much sooner.