DOTD For Wednesday, November 19, 2025

A Drink To Sip While Reading Almost Any Book

Today’s DOTD - Drink Of The Day - is a Hemingway Special Daiquiri inspired by the birthday of the modern e-book, Amazon’s Kindle e-reader, the device that made e-books mainstream. You can even make today’s DOTD as a mocktail, much like how you can customize your Kindle.

On this day in 2007, Amazon released its very first Kindle. Four and a half hours after that, the device sold out. And a technology that many had been talking about for years suddenly became as common as cell phones.

.The Kindle wasn’t the first e-reader, though. Project Gutenberg has been making free digital books available since 1971, and the first e-book readers were released as early as 1998. Sony even released its own e-book technology in 2006. But it was the Kindle that tipped the casual reader towards the idea that digital books might just be the best solution to pack all the reading one could want into one small easy to carry device.

While a portable device that could carry lots of reading content might seem like an original idea, Spanish citizen & teacher Ángela Ruiz Robles would assure you she had the idea long before Amazon did.

Ángela Ruiz Robles invented, and in 1948 patented, the la Enciclopedia Mecánica, or Mechanical Encyclopaedia, which is now considered to be the earliest version of an ebook. She couldn’t build a prototype until 1962, though that prototype is now exhibited in the National Museum of Science and Technology in A Coruña, Spain.

Her mechanical book displayed content on three scroll-like reels that could be wound forwards or backwards across a central ‘page’. The reels were interchangeable, so content was customizable. The book came with a built-in light to facilitate reading in the dark, and it also supported sounds. Her mechanical book was roughly the size of an ordinary book, and was enclosed by two box-like covers.

Señora Ruiz Robles developed the Mechanical Encyclopaedia for her students so that they would not have to carry stacks of heavy books around. She believed her device would make learning more attractive by allowing her to adapt the learning materials to the specific needs of the individual student. The content reels could be produced in any language, and about any subject at any level, and teachers could produce their own content for it.

Ultimately, despite several trips to Madrid to try to find backing, she was unable to fund production or find a production partner.

Even so, in 1947, Ruiz Robles received the Civil Cross of Alfonso X the Wise, one of Spain’s highest awards for outstanding contributions to education, science, culture, teaching, and research. She received her award for her innovations in education and social work, and in 1952 she was also awarded a Gold Medal at an exhibition for Spanish inventors.

While there is no specific cocktail to celebrate books & literature, we chose the Hemingway Special Daiquiri for today because Hemingway was a great writer - and also because we can make today’s Drink Of The Day as a mocktail, which we know some folks here in the bar prefer.

Ingredients

Here’s what you’re going to need for this drink: