every food and cocktail in: The Great Gatsby (part 1)
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Originally published 1925, edition used for this blog is the Scribner Library edition published in 1953. (Sadly without the iconic cover, but has a nice faux-bois design on it and a ton of notes from college students in the margins.)
The Great Gatsby, despite being the source of an approximately infinite number of theme parties and events (notably, lawn parties), is very vague about actual food options, and even glosses over specific cocktails.
When it does mention specific meals or cocktails it’s usually to reinforce a character trait, or story point, rather than create a specific atmosphere - to my memory this is true for all Fitzgerald’s books (the chicken sandwich and martinis in Franny and Zooey!). So instead of the usual list, we’ll be doing a little bit of sleuthing to fill in the blanks today, old sport.
Chapter I:
“four cocktails just in from the pantry”
“corky, but rather impressive claret”
Jordan, Tom, and Daisy are having pre-dinner cocktails with Nick, our narrator. But what, precisely, are they drinking?
A “well-equipped” pantry, ca 1920s.
There’s a couple potential directions this one could go, based on the time period, but we can assume from scenes in other chapters that the Buchanans have access to actual (read: not dangerous, likely not homebrewed, maybe even name brand) liquor even during Prohibition, due to their extreme wealth.
We have three important clues about the drink being served:
Nick and Jordan can both down the cocktail with no problem, despite Jordan being a heavy drinker and Nick “never having been drunk before.”
Served prior to dinner.
It is early summer and rather warm out - Daisy snaps out the candles with her fingers because the sun hasn’t set by dinnertime.
To examine our options, we’ll turn to the Ideal Bartender by Thomas Bullock, published in 1917, which is not only fairly close to the time period but sourced mostly from Thomas’s experiences in the Midwest, which is where Daisy, Gatsby, and Nick are originally from. (Disclaimer: although I usually try to use primary sources, I did check Imbibe! by David Wondrich for a few details.)
The party is likely drinking a lower ABV starter cocktail of sorts - the Buchanans have a full household staff, and the cocktails arrive from a butler’s pantry, so they have the ability to make something more complicated than straight gin - and nothing too strong or recognizable, since Nick is usually quick to mention his opinions on specific liquors and his inexperience with them later on. So it’s a mixed drink, of some kind.
In This Must Be The Place by Jimmie Charters, he says that gin is a good base for an aperitif cocktail, and that an experienced drinker would avoid using too much of synthetic blends like Amer-Picon, Mandarin, menthe, and green chartreuse, because they’re far too intoxicating for this purpose.
On top of all of this, it can’t be too fashionable - after all, the Buchanans are old money.
Amer-Picon is no longer made the same way it would’ve been in the 1920s, but you can try and make your own.
So here are a few plausible options, with recipes, for the Buchanans’ pre-dinner cocktails:
Blackthorne Sour
Fill large bar glass 2/3 full shaved ice
4 dashes lime or lemon juice
1 teaspoonful pineapple syrup
½ teaspoonful green chartreuse
1 jigger sloe gin
Stir; strain into claret glass; ornament with fruit and serve.
I almost feel like this one is too trendy for the Buchanans’ house - they’re very old money and the inclusion of pineapple syrup and sloe gin is a touch more Gatsby than Daisy. Still, I’ve included it as it hits all of the necessary criteria, and I just really personally liked drinking it.
Deronda Cocktail
Fill large bar glass with shaved ice.
1 ½ jiggers Calisaya (a bitter orange aperitif with cinchona bark, allspice and clove)
1 ½ jiggers Plymouth Gin
Shake; strain into cocktail glass and serve.
Gin Daisy
Juice of ½ a lime
1 pony Cusenier grenadine
1 jigger Sir Robert Burnette’s Old Tom Gin
Serve in a mug with lump ice; fill with seltzer.
Stir well and decorate with the skin of the lime and fresh mint and serve with straws.
This drink doesn’t have any bitter elements, but is conveniently named the same as one of our main characters - who has a thing for mint juleps - and is low alcohol and nicely refreshing. I doubt F Scott named the character after the drink, but it’s a fun coincidence.
With the exception of the Calisaya, which is now difficult to locate, all of these are easy enough to find and make at home if you’ve got a basic bartending setup, so a butler certainly could’ve made and delivered them fairly quickly.
I strongly recommend making your own grenadine and pineapple syrup for ideal results, though there’s no proof that the characters would’ve had their cook go to the trouble at the time. Still, it’s quarantine, so if you can, why not?
See y’all next time for chapter two!
