Martin Morse Wooster at the Weekly Standard offers a review of Philip Greene's To Have and Have Another: A Hemingway Cocktail Companion.
Ernest Hemingway drank far more than most people, and probably more than was good for him. He loved liquor so much that when he was in his late 50s, and a diabetic, his doctors tried to ration his alcohol consumption—to a liter of wine a day.
But Hemingway was far from being an uncontrollable drunk. He did most of his writing in the mornings, and he made sure not to drink while he was writing. Nor did he drink late at night.
Moreover, Hemingway well understood the problems that uncontrolled alcohol consumption could cause for a writer’s career: Reminiscing about F. Scott Fitzgerald, who often was barely able to control his drinking, Hemingway recalled, “I told Scott that being a rummy made him very vulnerable—I mean, a rummy married to a crazy is not the kind of pari-mutuel that aids a writer.”
Drinking was an essential part of Hemingway’s character and of his fiction.
Here, Philip Greene provides a highly entertaining look at what Hemingway drank, where he drank, and the characters Hemingway encountered while drinking.
You can read the rest of the review via the below link:
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