To celebrate the New Year 2020 and the beginning of the decade, on display in the EFL are books from the Roaring Twenties paired with classic cocktails which either feature in the literary works of the authors, or have been inspired by the author and their characters in modern cocktail collections.
On display are two cocktail books written in the era. Harry’s ABC of Mixing Cocktails (1925) and from the end of the period, The Savoy Cocktail Book (1930). The books were written as guides for barmen and staff. Within the books are a range of cocktails which would have been drank at the time, and can be found within novels from the twenties. For example, in Ernest Hemingway’s the Sun Also Rises (1926) at the beginning of chapter 6 the narrator can be found sipping a Jack Rose at the hotel bar. A recipe for the Jack Rose can be found within Harry’s ABC of Mixing Cocktails.
Fitzgerald first novel This Side of Paradise, was published in 1920. His work captures the themes of the decade in America, such as the advances in modernity and technology, but also the depleting morality. The Great Gatsby (1925) has been considered one of the Great American Novels. On display is a graphic version of the novel by Greenberg (2009) which imagine the characters as strange creatures. Pairing with Fitzgerald’s work is the Gin Rickey, which features in chapter 7 of The Great Gatsby. The cocktails appearance is pivotal to Tom’s realisation of the affair between Daisy and Gatsby.
The Golden Age of Detective novels is considered to be from the 1920s to the end of the 30s. Writing these novels was Agatha Christie, and her debut novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published in 1920 in America. The novel also saw the debut of Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective. To accompany the novel is the recipe for a Black Russian, fittingly the drink is considered to have been first made by a Belgian barman.
Virginia Woolf’s Room of One’s Own (1929), inspired the title for the 2016 cocktail book A Drink of One’s Own by Becherer and Marlatt. The collection has recipes for a range of literary ladies from Sappho to Toni Morrison, and of course Woolf. The collection was mainly inspired by Zelda Fitzgerald (née Sayre).
Evelyn Waugh’s first published novel, Decline and Fall (1928), satirised 1920s Britain through the misadventures of Paul Pennyfeather. The novel has been paired with Decline and Fall Down, an original recipe from the cocktail book Tequila Mockingbird (2013) by Tim Federle which matches works of literature with fitting drinks.
This exhibition has been curated by Emma Jambor – EFL Graduate Trainee 2019-20