Call me Emilie. Haha, get it?

Hey there, welcome back to Tequila Mockingbird, the series that allows me to combine the only two things that bring me joy in life: reading good books and drinking better cocktails. If you’re new here, this is a series in which I follow the literary-inspired cocktails of “Tequila Mockingbird: Cocktails with a Literary Twist” by Tim Federle, and give my unqualified reviews of both the novels and the cocktails.

If you haven’t realized by now, the classic novel that I decided to get a little ~twisty~ with this week is none other than “Moby Dick” by Herman Melville, otherwise known as “The Great American Novel.” So without further ado, let’s do like Moby and dive right in.

I’m going to be honest, had I not been assigned to read this book in class I’m not sure I would have ever picked it up. “Moby Dick” is a 135-chapter long novel following Ishmael and his desire for some great adventure. Eventually, Ishmael joins the crew of the Pequod, including the infamous Captain Ahab. This union sparks the main plotline of the novel which is to hunt down and kill the great white whale, Moby Dick.

I wouldn’t be one to describe this book as a page-turner. While one could appreciate the poetic style of writing Melville, I was just left with a headache. If you’re someone with a little wanderlust, and you're always looking for the next adventure, then this book might be for you. It was most definitely not for me. My rating: 2/5.

The one positive that came out of “Moby Dick” in my opinion, is the cocktail that it inspired: Moby Drink. The recipe is as follows:

1 ounce vodka

½ ounce Blue Curaçao

1 (12-ounce) can lemon-lime soda

1 Swedish Fish candy, for garnish

The first hurdle this cocktail presented was trying to figure out how to pronounce “Blue Curaçao.” Once I researched the correct pronunciation, called the liquor store, and had the clerk help me search the shelves, we could move on to the mixology.

For an incredibly bland book, this was an incredibly sweet drink. I couldn’t taste that vodka at all, but that’s not surprising considering it tasted like I was drinking a straight cup of sugar. That being said, the Swedish Fish was a nice touch I thoroughly enjoyed. My rating: 3/5.

With an overall rating of 5/10, I would say that the experience was aggressively average. The novel wasn’t bad, just boring, and the drink wasn’t gross, just sweet. Even though the book and cocktail haven’t been my favorites so far, I can still confidently say that my friends and I had a whale of a time.