Kingsley Amis, author of "Everyday Drinking"

Flavorwire tells us how to “Drink Like Our Favorite Authors.” The drinks sound delicious (Dorothy Parker liked a Whiskey Sour, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda were fond of Gin Rickeys) but the writers also offer warning about the booze. Wrote Parker:

I wish I could drink like a lady
I can take one or two at the most
Three and I’m under the table
Four and I’m under the host.

Fitzgerald cautioned:

First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.

And Charles Bukowski provided perhaps the single best explanation for why we are all always so drunk.

If something bad happens you drink in an attempt to forget; if something good happens you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing happens you drink to make something happen.

More on the topic at this 2006 Morning Edition broadcast about Hemingway & Bailey’s Bartending Guide. They include helpful recipes, including the ever-dangerous Long Island Iced Tea that was sometimes carried around in a thermos by Carson McCullers.

1⁄2 oz. gin

1⁄2 oz. vodka

1⁄2 oz. tequila

1⁄2 oz. light rum

1⁄2 oz. Cointreau

3⁄4 oz. lemon juice

Top with cola

Lemon wedge

And for yet more on the topic, here’s Amy Sedaris on Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!, trying to guess the drunken behaviors of famous authors. Cheers!