Cocktails, A Still Life 60 Spirited Paintings & Recipes
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Copyright © 2022 by Christine Sismondo and James Waller
Interior and cover illustrations copyright © 2022 by Todd M. Casey
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First Edition: August 2022
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2021944843
ISBNs: 978-0-7624-7518-6 (hardcover), 978-0-7624-7517-9 (ebook)
E3-20220622-JV-NF-ORI
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Where Inspiration Often Begins
Part One: Daytime Drinking
Bloody Mary
Corpse Reviver No. 2
Bellini
Dark ’n’ Stormy
Piña Colada
Queen’s Park Swizzle
Belgian 75
Cape Codder
White Wine Sangria
Ramos Gin Fizz
Tom Collins
Mojito
Part Two: Aperitivo Hour
Aperol Spritz
Sgroppino
Americano
Martini (Classic Gin)
Adonis
New York Sour
Strawberry Daiquiri
Pisco Sour
Gin and Tonic
Moscow Mule
Absinthe Drip
Part Three: Cocktail Party
Bramble
Hanky Panky
Long Island Iced Tea
Jack Rose
Vieux Carré
Aviation
Mai Tai
Manhattan
Cosmopolitan
Vesper
Paloma
Dirty Martini
Paper Plane
Zombie
Gimlet
Negroni
Old Fashioned
Part Four: Celebration
Champagne Cocktail
Brave Bull
Sangrita
Eggnog
Pisco Punch
Margarita
Scorpion Bowl
Mint Julep
French 75
Part Five: After Dinner and before Bed
Death Flip
Limoncello
Port of New York
Irish Coffee
Grasshopper
Brandy Alexander
Saketini
Penicillin
Sidecar
Pousse-Café
Epilogue: The Last Word
Discover More
About the Authors
In memory of Victoria Craven
(1958–2021)
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Acknowledgments
The work and support of many people made this book possible. First, we
want to thank Martha Hopkins of Terrace Partners, Austin, TX, for her
advocacy and commitment to seeing this project succeed. Second, we
express our gratitude to the late Victoria Craven, to whom this book is
dedicated. Todd’s publisher at Monacelli Press and James’s longtime
employer and friend, Victoria gave us important tips as we prepared the
proposal for this book. Our gratitude extends to the people we’ve worked
with at Running Press, especially editor Jordana Hawkins, who has been an
enthusiastic supporter of our project since taking it on in the summer of
2020, copyeditor Diana Drew, and book designer Marissa Raybuck. We’d
also like to thank Kristen Wiewora, who saw the promise of the book at the
outset.
Todd thanks his wife, Gina; his daughter, Scarlet; and his mother and
father, Leslie and Albert Casey, as well as his gallerists Howard, Amy,
Lance, and Alyssa Rehs. All the images of Todd’s paintings appear courtesy
of Rehs Contemporary Galleries, Inc., New York.
Christine thanks the many brilliant cocktail historians who have
unearthed the obscure histories of our favorite refreshments. Also, of
course, Myles, for always being there, and Allan, for all of the things.
And, finally, James thanks his husband and life companion, Jim
O’Connor, who died in February 2021 as this book was being prepared for
submission. For more than thirty years, Jim supported James in all his
endeavors and James is blessed to have had such a person in his life.
Introduction
I had an uncle—a more or less constantly drunk uncle—who once
confessed to me, “I don’t drink for the taste. I drink for the effects.” He
was, unsurprisingly, very drunk when he said this. To hear it properly in
your mind’s ear you’ve got to imagine his words being slurred: I doan drink
for duh taysh. I drink for duh effeksh.
Well, Uncle, don’t we all—drink for the effeksh, that is? But there are
those among us for whom the buzz of alcohol and the palliative care it so
kindly delivers define only part of the appeal of drinking. For us, the taste
—meaning the thousands of intriguing flavors that liquors possess, alone or
in combination—matters enormously. That doesn’t mean an affinity for
alcoholic beverages isn’t something people often have to work at acquiring,
or that we don’t all have our personal likes and dislikes. It just means that
the sense of taste (and its more powerful partner, smell) is an essential
contributor to the drinking experience.
But beyond the effects and the taste of booze, there’s a third facet of
drinking that I’d also identify as essential—what I’ll call the art of
drinking. Here, the term art covers a lot of territory and it bundles together
very different sorts of non-gustatory pleasure. That includes the homey
comfort—or the glitzy dazzle—of the places you like to go to drink. It
includes the lore of drinking, which stretches prehistorically back past the
Mesopotamian city-states and the Old Kingdom of ancient Egypt. It
includes all the rigamarole—glassware and barware and hard-to-come-by
ingredients—that sophisticated drinkers like to use, and, in some cases, to
collect. It includes the friendships that commence with or grow deeper over
drinks. And, of course, it embraces the mixological art itself—whether
practiced by you as you make yourself a Manhattan or performed by a
master bartender whose skills are mesmerizing to behold.
This art—this fine art of drinking—is what this book’s about. Note,
please, that the art doesn’t have to be all fancy-schmancy. It can be as
plainly pleasurable as sitting on a porch with a close friend, sipping Tom
Collinses as a summer evening closes in. Or it can be as dramatic and
thrilling as a glamorous cocktail party whose hosts have knocked
themselves out on the food, drink, and décor—and whose guests are all
beautiful, dressed to the nines, and excellent conversationalists besides.
(Granted, all that may be a tad much to hope for.) These are the kinds of
experiences—humble or exalted, but engaging all the senses—that Todd
Casey’s still lifes and Christine Sismondo’s reflections evoke and celebrate.
Besides occasionally writing about drinks I also work as a freelance editor
and for the past dozen or more years I’ve often edited art-instruction books.
That’s how I met Todd Casey—working with him on his first book, The Art
of Still Life (Monacelli Studio, 2020).
To be frank, I’m sort of an art snob. I look at an awful lot of stuff and
most of the stuff I look at fails the test of my discriminating—or, if you
prefer, cranky—eye. A painting might be technically super-proficient—as
so many artworks produced by contemporary classically trained realist
painters are—while also feeling soulless, just a robotic exercise in
fashioning an image that most people will automatically find “pretty” or
even “beautiful.” I don’t have much patience for art of that sort, even if I
admire the artist’s skill. I want a work of art to teach my eye something it
didn’t know or to deepen my understanding of color, line, shape,
composition—or representation itself. If, besides informing my eye, an
artwork also moves me emotionally, so much the better.
Todd’s work does all this for me, and I think it’s the same for a lot of
other people, as well. His sales figures would certainly indicate that he’s
doing something right. Of course, there’s often a big difference between
being a successful painter and being a good painter, but I don’t see that
distinction at work in Todd’s case. I think people buy his paintings because
they are moved by them. Yes, they look nice on the wall. But they also
reward the viewer in a deeper way—and, in fact, telling a story in a way
that imparts a mood or powerful feeling is part of Todd’s intention as a
painter.
Working with Todd on The Art of Still Life also showed me two other
things, the first being hard to miss: A great deal of Todd’s work focuses on
