WOW Book Club

Literature

Drink Recipes

Mead & Reads. Wine & Spines.

Enhance your reading experience with an extravagant cocktail in hand. WOW presents three flavor-packed, literature-inspired drink recipes. At-home bartending is trending this year. Hop on the trend to impress friends and serve beverages that pair well with your books.

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1984's Victory Gin

With Big Brother’s Victory Gin, “the world began to look more cheerful.”

While ours won’t offer the fictional drink’s sensation of “being hit... with a rubber club,” ("1984") it will end a chapter on a high, citrusy, note. WOW Book Club’s “Victory Gin,” is the Spanish Gin and Tonic, an easy-to-make, sophisticated cocktail.

Reimagining London as part of Oceania, this refreshing cocktail unifies London Dry Gin and tonic water. Drawing the glass to your lips, you’ll smell the aromatic bliss of orange, thyme, and juniper berries, an invigorating marriage of citrus and pine. Ready to indulge the ice-cold drink while reading Winston Smith’s fiery resistance?

Here’s what you’ll need.

Ingredients:

2 ounces Tanqueray London Dry Gin
4 ounces tonic water
Thyme sprigs
1 orange
1 teaspoon dried juniper berries
1 lime
Ice cubes

Steps:

Fill half of a cup with ice.
Cut four thin lime slices and add to the cup.
Pour two ounces of Tanqueray London Dry Gin.
Pour four ounces of tonic water on top.
Add one teaspoon of dried juniper berries.
Stir gently.
Dig a knife into an orange’s skin at an angle so that the flat side of the blade is closer to the orange. Make the incision a half-inch long. Start rotating the orange and moving the blade so it peels. The peel should be about four inches long.
Scrap off any remaining fibers inside the peel so it is flat. Slice off the edges so that the peel resembles a long rectangle. Wrap the peel around a round utensil, like a chopstick or straw. Hold it in place for a minute and it should hold a curl. Place the curl in the cup.
Garnish the drink with thyme sprigs, sticking vertically out of the cup.

Now, crack open a book and enjoy.

Hemingway Daiquiri

Ernest Hemingway once said, “I drink to make other people interesting.”

For us, it’s the books. WOW Book Club’s Hemingway Daiquiri is a mouth-watering drink that pairs well with any book. Similar to the Floridita Daiquiri, it will notably pair well with this month’s read, “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” a tragedy of bittersweet Floridian love. Rumored to have been a Hemingway invention, it is no wonder this drink has survived decades since its conception.

This fine drink mixes sweet and tart, producing a luscious flavor profile composed of citruses, maraschino liqueur and white rum.

Let your tastebuds sail through the tangy Hemingway Daiquiri waves for an unforgettable reading experience.

Interested? Here’s how to craft it.

Ingredients:

2 ounces white rum
½ ounce maraschino liqueur
¾ ounce lime juice
½ ounce grapefruit juice
1 lime
1 ⅓ teaspoons honey (optional)
Sugar
½ water
Ice cubes

Steps:

Apply a third of a teaspoon of honey to the rim of a glass.
Drip the glass into a plate of sugar to create a sugar rim.
Fill a third of a glass with ice cubes.
Pour two ounces of white rum into the glass.
Pour half an ounce of maraschino liqueur, the three-fourths ounce of lime juice, and one-half ounce of grapefruit juice.
Stir gently.
Slice a lime into a wedge and place on the rim.

Optional: warm one teaspoon of honey with water and mix. Pour into the drink for additional sweetness.

Hemingway also said, “Never delay kissing a pretty girl or opening a bottle of whiskey.” So, why wait? Try it out now. Impress your friends with not only your expanding bookshelf but your mixology art.

Catcher in the Rye Whiskey

As Holden experiences, winter break can be chilling.

Warm yourself with WOW Book Club’s Catcher in the Rye Cocktail. This delectable drink combines rye whiskey with the tempting flavors of apple, cinnamon sugar, and caramel. Feel toasty by the fireplace - sipping from the sweetened caramel glass rim and warming up with fiery whiskey.

Let "Catcher in the Rye"'s sorrow dissipate in this dessert drink. While a blizzard may be storming outside, this cocktail's sugariness will comfort you as you burrow into your books.

Ready for some heat? Let's make it.

Ingredients:

2 ounces rye whiskey
3 ounces apple cider
1/4 ounce salted caramel syrup
Cinnamon sugar
1 cinnamon stick
1 apple wedge
Ice cubes

Steps:

Apply a third of a teaspoon of caramel syrup to the rim of a glass.
Drip the glass into a plate of cinnamon sugar to create a sugar rim.
Fill a third of a glass with ice cubes.
Pour two ounces of rye whiskey into the glass.
Pour three ounces of apple cider into the glass.
Stir gently with a cinnamon stick. Leave it sticking vertically out of the cup.
Add an apple wedge inside the drink.

As Mark Twain once said, "Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whiskey is barely enough." Enjoy your drink and share with us your thoughts on social media with #WOWdrinks.