Cocktail Talk: The Lady in the Lake
As mentioned in a Cocktail Talk just a few weeks ago, I was recently in the UK (which is always jolly) and while there of course I had to try out a few local gins, it being the country I associate perhaps most strongly with gin (though I love my local gins, tons and always, but historically, you know). And I had some good ones, indeed, with one fav being Whitstable Harbour gin (which features Sea Buckthorn and Samphire, and which has a sibling featuring Kentish Cherries and Hibiscus – that one I liked so much I brought a bottle home). I had enough gin, that I was reminded of the below quote from Raymond Carver, who liked gin enough to have his detective swimming in it, so to speak.
I smelled of gin. Not just casually, as if I had taken four or five drinks of a winter morning to get out of bed on, but as if the Pacific Ocean was pure gin and I had nose-dived off the boat deck. The gin was in my hair and eyebrows, on my chin and under my chin. It was on my shirt.
–Raymond Chandler, The Lady in the Lake
