Did a Signature Cocktail Inspire These Great Writers?

Literary greats and their favorite drinks

Perhaps now more than ever, two of the things we’re in dire need of are escapism and inspiration. And so, really, How to Drink Like a Writer: Recipes for the Cocktails and Libations that Inspired 100 Literary Greats, which includes actual recipes for drinks — both classic and charmingly unusual — couldn’t have come out at a better time. Indulging in Valley of the Dolls as a late July delight? Try it with Jacqueline Susann’s 2 Red Dolls and a Shot of Scotch. Basking in the tub reading love poems? Take Pablo Neruda’s Pisco Sour in there with you.

Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn B. Bennett’s Harlem Cocktail

Photos courtesy of Apollo Publishers

Langston Hughes regularly drank beer and whiskey, but he surely enjoyed his fair share of his beloved neighborhood’s eponymous cocktail. Perhaps he would have tossed a few back in the company of his good friend Gwendolyn B. Bennett, a poet and painter who, along with Hughes, was the co-founder of the short-lived but culturally significant literary journal Fire!! and founded Harlem Circles, spaces for young Harlem writers including…