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.”

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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