Leonard Cohen’s Cocktail Recipe: Learn How to Make “The Red Needle”

Image by Jarkko Arjat­sa­lo, The Leonard Cohen Files

Back in 1975, poet and singer-song­writer Leonard Cohen cre­at­ed a cock­tail that he called The Red Nee­dle. Accord­ing to the web­site, “The Hitch­hik­er’s Guide to the Galaxy,” here’s how to make it:

If you’d like to enter­tain your friends with a few Red Nee­dles, and you feel you must have a recipe, here’s some­thing too smooth to go by:

Into one very tall glass about half full of crushed ice pour and drop:

2 oz tequi­la (that’s 2½ Eng­lish mea­sures or about 60ml)
1 slice lemon
enough cran­ber­ry juice to top up the glass

Repeat for each friend.

Serve with Mon­tre­al smoked meat sand­wich­es accom­pa­nied by Leonard Cohen’s Var­i­ous Posi­tions.

If you don’t want to make it at home, you can always vis­it NYC and head to the Jew­ish Muse­um, where, notes the NYTimes, “the drink is being served on Thurs­days in August in the muse­um lob­by.”

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

F. Scott Fitzger­ald Con­ju­gates “to Cock­tail,” the Ulti­mate Jazz-Age Verb (1928)

Win­ston Churchill Gets a Doctor’s Note to Drink “Unlim­it­ed” Alco­hol in Pro­hi­bi­tion Amer­i­ca (1932)

Drink­ing with William Faulkn­er: The Writer Had a Taste for The Mint Julep & Hot Tod­dy