Neal Thompson's Blog: Blood & Whiskey, page 3

Interrogation(s): Edan Lepucki

Edan Lepucki’s third novel, Time’s Mouth, which comes out today, has already been earning gobs of pre-pub buzz — summer preview picks by the New York Times and NPR, a People ‘Book of the Week’, an Indie Next pick for August, and Edan was profiled in the LA Times. (I’ll have a review later this month.)

In our Q&A, Edan discusses music she writes to, her favorite writers (including Morrison, McMurtry, MacDonald), mint tea, and a drink called the Rodriguez.

You can find Edan’s newsletter here: ...

Interrogation(s): Laura Lippman

I’ve probably interviewed Laura in different capacities more than any other writer. With her new book, Prom Mom, publishing today (7/25/23), I’m reviving three of our previous Q&As, spanning a dozen years.

You can find Laura’s newsletter here:

From 2021…

(from Blood & Whiskey #3)

Jean Hanff Korelitz’sThe Plot pokes at the same testy question driving Laura Lippman’s excellent new Dream Girl: who has the right to tell another person’s story? I’ve read most of Lippman’s books, going back to the star...

The Gimlet

(from Blood & Whiskey #25)

Cocktail of the Month

This guest drink comes from

Michael Ruhlman

, whose new book — The Book of Cocktail Ratios: The Surprising Simplicity of Classic Cocktails — is a must have for those who want to up their mixology game by understanding the kinship between so many drinks, and how swapping one ingredient turns, for example, a Manhattan into a Rob Roy and a Negroni into a Boulevardier.

Here’s Michael (who publishes the great

Ruhlman's Newsletter

on food, cooking, books, coc...

The Italian American

Cocktail of the Month

(from Blood & Whiskey #26)

I enjoyed mixing up this one up with friends Rob (like my spouse, an Italian American himself) and Nancy, in their very Americana town of East Aurora, NY, on the Fourth of July. There are different versions of this out there, but to me this one (similar to the Paper Plane) is simpler and less sweet than some others.

The Italian American

1 oz. bourbon

3/4 oz. Campari

1/2 oz. amaro (options: Montenegro, Meletti, Nonino)

1/4 oz. lemon juice (or more to add ...

The Aquatonic

Cocktail of the Month…

(from Blood & Whiskey #14)

Keeping things simple, cool and quirky this month with a homemade thing I call the Aquatonic. Instead of Q&T, replace the G with chilly aquavit — easily found around my Nordic-rooted ‘hood. (If you’ve been reading this for the past year, you know clear spirits sometimes replace the “whiskey” of the title.)

The Aquatonic

2 oz aquavit

tonic

lime juice

dash of bitters (something light, like orange, plum, or tree bitters)

It’s best if the aquavit comes strai...

The Ward 8

Cocktail of the Month…

(from Blood & Whiskey #10)

There are many origins stories behind this classic, but this much is known (and can be found in my book, The First Kennedys): Martin Lomasney, powerful boss of Boston’s Ward 8 (the west end) through the late 1800s, was a contemporary (and frequent foe) of P.J. Kennedy, the quiet but equally powerful boss of Ward 2 (East Boston). The cocktail is credited to Lomasney’s turf but is more broadly a testament to Boston’s era of upstart Irish-Democratic w...

Hot Whiskey

Cocktail of the Month…

(from Blood & Whiskey #8)

This month’s guest mixologist is Rosie Schaap, former "Drink" columnist for The New York Times Magazine and author of Drinking with Men and Becoming a Sommelier. Her next book — The Slow Road North: How I Found Peace in an Improbable Country, about moving to Northern Ireland after dual tragedies — is coming in August. (If you want to sample her wit and style, read this: “How I Learned to Love Vegetables—by Following the Grateful Dead.”) I asked Rosi...

The Road Trip

Cocktail of the Month

(from Blood & Whiskey #3)

My spouse and I have never been good at recipes, viewing them as suggestions to adapt from. Same with cocktails. This month’s drink is inspired by Robert Simonson’s Three Ingredient Cocktails (scored at McNally Jackson Books in Soho), plus the tasty “Dalloway” I sipped at the Ace Hotel’s Breslin bar (rye, lemon, ginger, aperol, soda). This is a mash-up of the two, a twist on a whiskey sour or whiskey smash.

The Road Trip

3 ounces bourbon (I used Buffal...

Blood & Whiskey #26

Hello friends and readers,

It’s becoming a problem. I can’t walk past a Little Free Library without checking inside and usually end up finishing my jog with a book or two in my sweaty hands. I can’t enter a bookstore without buying. And the library? It’s like crack for a book addict. The result is a house full of stacks and shelves and hoarded piles. Donations to friends and Little Free Libraries barely make a dent. It all gets replenished. But here’s the thing about the actual reading of all the...

Interrogation: Andre Dubus III

Okay, I lied… Last month I announced that I’d be creating more of these author “Interrogations” like the one I recently did with Megan Abbott…

I intended to start putting these posts behind a subscription paywall. Maybe I will at some point, but for now I’m keeping them free. How can I deny you the chance to hear Andre Dubus III talk eloquently and passionately about writing, about money and poverty, about the value of work, the vast capacity of the novel, his love of a good pilsner and his faith...