FAREWELL TO HEMINGWAY COCKTAIL (1937)

Holding on to the dregs of summer, I thought I would treat myself and a friend to another historical cocktail recipe from The Gentleman’s Companion: Being an Exotic Drinking Book, Or, Around the World with Jigger, Beaker, and Flask by Charles Henry Baker Jr., published originally in 1939. This original recipe titled Farewell to Hemingway, was concocted by Baker, a long-time friend of Ernest Hemingway, in Coconut Grove, FL one January night in 1937. Hemingway and his bullfighting friend, Sidney Franklin, were en route to Madrid, where Hemingway would report on the Spanish Civil War. Since Hemingway was known to love kirschwasser, Baker put together this summery cocktail in his honour. Ever the fan of cherry-flavoured anything and keen to try a drink concocted for the first time in the presence of the famed writer himself, I knew this had to be the next recipe we tried from this very interesting book of cocktails. See the ingredients and process at the end of this post, sourced from Charles Henry Baker Jr.’s book.

My experience making it:

My lovely German friend brought some high-quality kirschwasser for us to use in the cocktail. We decided to make the original cherry version of this drink, and I bought some Polish sour cherry syrup (which I think is normally used to make juice, similar to Ribena). The limes I bought were fairly small, so we decided to use two per cocktail instead of the called for 'one big green lime'. For lack of collins glasses, I just used regular, large, clear IKEA glasses - definitely less nice to look at, but functional. Since Club Soda is hard to find under that name in Germany, I just used San Pellegrino sparkling mineral water, which I have heard is close. Also, I only had crushed ice on hand instead of ice cubes.

I began by squeezing the limes to create the lime juice necessary. Filling the cocktail shaker with what I eyeballed to be roughly the amount of crushed ice needed to make up 4 ice cubes, I then measured out the kirschwasser and cherry syrup and tossed them in. Adding in the lime juice, I shook the shaker intensely for about ten seconds. I poured the contents out into the serving glass without straining, then topped the drink up with club soda, a few centimetres away from the top of the glass. While I did this, my friend created the perfect little lime spirals to use as garnish. We made one more cocktail in the same way and settled down with our drinks at the table full of snacks. The drink itself was a wonderful fuchsia colour, with the lime peel's pop of green making the drink look like a summer flower! Of course, we both mused this cocktail would look much nicer in the called-for collins glass. The ice was clinking and there were bubbles rising - the cocktail felt very lively!

My experience tasting it:

After a little "Prost!", we took our first sips. We were quite surprised at how sour the cocktail was! Not sure if we had gone a little too overboard with the lime juice, or whether we should have used a different type of cherry syrup without 'sour' in the title, we both agreed it needed more sweetness. Otherwise however, it was a very lovely cocktail - refreshing, cold, summery, just slightly cherry-flavoured, and just noticeably alcoholic. Without honey in the house and not wanting to add that granular texture that sugar normally brings, we opted to use my one true love - real Canadian maple syrup, which, in my opinion, goes well with just about anything. It did the trick and balanced out the cocktail nicely, but you could most definitely taste the new maple-y flavour in there! Overall I would probably make this cocktail again, but be a bit more careful with the ratio of sweet to sour. I would probably suggest tasting this one after shaking and before serving to see if it needs a bit more lime juice or a bit more cherry syrup. It was an interesting literary-inspired cocktail overall, and very much drinkable. However, we only opted to have one before switching to our favourite pink gin and tonic. If you end up making this drink, if you liked it, or if you changed anything from the original recipe, do let me know!

Mint Julep No. IV from Santiago de Cuba original recipe (1939)

Sourced from The Gentleman’s Companion: Being an Exotic Drinking Book, Or, Around the World with Jigger, Beaker, and Flask by Charles Henry Baker Jr. (1939).

A Farewell to Hemingway, Being a Sort of Kirsch Collins We Invented on the Night We Saw Hemingway and Bullfighter Sidney Franklin off on the Plane for New York, & Loyalist Spain There is no reason to this drink. It just happened because Ernest prefers kirschwasser, and it was a muggy, half-breathless sort of night. The cherry syrup sweet, of course, can be varied to taste.... Take 1 1/2 jiggers of kirsch, 1/4 pony of cherry syrup - again the drug store kind - and the juice of 1 big green lime. Shake this mixture with 4 ice cubes, turn ice and all into a collins glass of at least 14 oz capacity, drop in a spiral peel of green lime, and fill the glass not quite full with good, chilled club soda.... We've later found that raspberry syrup is very decent, also.

Modern Recipe

Based on the recipe from The Gentleman’s Companion: Being an Exotic Drinking Book, Or, Around the World with Jigger, Beaker, and Flask by Charles Henry Baker Jr. (1939).

Ingredients:

Crushed ice

1.5 jiggers (60 ml) kirschwasser

1/4 jigger (10 ml) cherry or raspberry syrup

The juice from one large lime

1 long spiral peel of lime

Method:

Set up a 14 oz tall collins glass.

In a cocktail shaker, add 4 ice cubes, the kirschwasser, the cherry/raspberry syrup, and the lime juice in and shake for at least 10 seconds.

Pour all contents, including ice and without straining, into the collins glass.

Top up the glass, not quite to the top, with club soda.

Add the spiral peel of lime to garnish.

momo and kirsch

NYE Menu Plans: Poutine* and an Apple Cobbler for dessert.

NYD Menu Plans: Pepperoni* and Mushroom Pizzas

I decided to 100% fully commit myself to a full on German or German Inspired, onslaught of libations.

Spaß vorprogrammiert 👀

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