by Andrew Chalk
Not as affluent as The Great Gatsby? Not as effeminate as Leonardo DiCaprio? Not as dead as F. Scott Fitzgerald? No worries. Have a “Ricky”! It’s the cocktail featured in chapter 7 in a scene of brooding passion and just the slightest undercurrent of athlete’s foot.
The scene begins on a day that is “broiling, almost the last, certainly the warmest, of the summer.” Jay Gatsby and the narrator, Nick Carraway, have been invited to lunch at the home of Tom and Daisy Buchanan. Jordan Baker, Daisy’s best friend and Nick’s love interest, is also there. By this point, Gatsby and Daisy have rekindled their old romance. Although Tom is initially unaware, he suspects Gatsby to be a bootlegger and dislikes him anyway. Thus, the temperature is hot and the mood is tense. At one point, Daisy tells Tom to “Make us a cold drink.” Just as Tom leaves the room, Daisy kisses Gatsby and professes her love to him. When Tom returns, he is “preceding four Gin Rickey’s that clicked full of ice. Gatsby took up his drink. ‘They certainly look cool,’ [Gatsby] said with visible tension. We drank in long, greedy swallows.”” Continue reading
