“Civ­i­liza­tion begins with dis­til­la­tion,” William Faulkn­er once said, and like many of the great writ­ers of the 20th cen­tu­ry — Ernest Hem­ing­way, F. Scott Fitzger­ald, James Joyce — the bard of Oxford, Mis­sis­sip­pi cer­tain­ly had a fond­ness for alco­hol.

Unlike many of the oth­ers, though, Faulkn­er liked to drink while he was writ­ing. In 1937 his French trans­la­tor, Mau­rice Edgar Coin­dreau, was try­ing to deci­pher one of Faulkn­er’s idio­syn­crat­i­cal­ly baroque sen­tences. He showed the pas­sage to the writer, who puz­zled over it for a moment and then broke out laugh­ing. “I have absolute­ly no idea of what I meant,” Faulkn­er told Coin­dreau. “You see, I usu­al­ly write at night. I always keep my whiskey with­in reach; so many ideas that I can’t remem­ber in the morn­ing pop into my head.”

Every now and then Faulkn­er would embark on a drunk­en binge. His pub­lish­er, Ben­nett Cerf, recalled:

The mad­den­ing thing about Bill Faulkn­er was that he’d go off on one of those ben­ders, which were some­times delib­er­ate, and when he came out of it, he’d come walk­ing into the office clear-eyed, ready for action, as though he had­n’t had a drink in six months. But dur­ing those bouts he did­n’t know what he was doing. He was help­less. His capac­i­ty was­n’t very great; it did­n’t take too much to send him off. Occa­sion­al­ly, at a good din­ner, with the fine wines and brandy he loved, he would mis­cal­cu­late. Oth­er times I think he pre­tend­ed to be drunk to avoid doing some­thing he did­n’t want to do.

Wine and brandy were not Faulkn­er’s favorite spir­its. He loved whiskey. His favorite cock­tail was the mint julep. Faulkn­er would make one by mix­ing whiskey–preferably bourbon–with one tea­spoon of sug­ar, a sprig or two of crushed mint, and ice. He liked to drink his mint julep in a frosty met­al cup. (See image above.) The word “julep” first appeared in the late 14th cen­tu­ry to describe a syrupy drink used to wash down med­i­cine. Faulkn­er believed in the med­i­c­i­nal effi­ca­cy of alco­hol. Lil­lian Ross once vis­it­ed the author when he was ail­ing, and quot­ed him as say­ing, “Isn’t any­thin’ Ah got whiskey won’t cure.”

On a cold win­ter night, Faulkn­er’s med­i­cine of choice was the hot tod­dy. His niece, Dean Faulkn­er Wells, described the recipe and rit­u­al for hot tod­dies favored by her uncle (whom she called “Pap­py”) in The Great Amer­i­can Writ­ers’ Cook­book, quot­ed last week by Maud New­ton:

Pap­py alone decid­ed when a Hot Tod­dy was need­ed, and he admin­is­tered it to his patient with the best bed­side man­ner of a coun­try doc­tor.

He pre­pared it in the kitchen in the fol­low­ing way: Take one heavy glass tum­bler. Fill approx­i­mate­ly half full with Heav­en Hill bour­bon (the Jack Daniel’s was reserved for Pap­py’s ail­ments). Add one table­spoon of sug­ar. Squeeze 1/2 lemon and drop into glass. Stir until sug­ar dis­solves. Fill glass with boil­ing water. Serve with pothold­er to pro­tect patien­t’s hands from the hot glass.

Pap­py always made a small cer­e­mo­ny out of serv­ing his Hot Tod­dy, bring­ing it upstairs on a sil­ver tray and admon­ish­ing his patient to drink it quick­ly, before it cooled off. It nev­er failed.

h/t The Migrant Book Club

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Artists Under the Influ­ence

William Faulkn­er Audio Archive Goes Online

William Faulkn­er Reads from As I Lay Dying