For our third jaunt into the politics, romance, customs, and (most importantly) drinking in the upper-middle-and-upper-classes as shown in the Anthony Trollope book The Prime Minister, we go on a little vacation. This takes us back into contact with Sexty (!) Parker (for more on Sexty, see The Prime Minister Cocktail Talk Part II), and with his wife, and with Emily Wharton, here using her married name, Mrs. Lopez (for more on Emily and for a brief overview of the whole book, be sure to see The Prime Minister Cocktail Talk Part I, and don’t miss the past Anthony Trollope Cocktail Talks). The below quote is a bit long, forgive me! But I didn’t want to miss the so-called bubbly or the not-called (but still seems to be) whiskey toddy. You deserve both – and deserve to read the book, so do if you haven’t.
It was all his ordering, and if he bade her dine with a crossing-sweeper she would do it. But she could not but remember that not long since he had told her that his partner was not a person with whom she could fitly associate; and she did not fail to perceive that he must be going down in the world to admit such association for her after he had so spoken. And as she sipped the mixture which Sexty called champagne, she thought of Herefordshire and the banks of the Wye, and,— alas, alas, — she thought of Arthur Fletcher. Nevertheless, come what might, she would do her duty, even though it might call upon her to sit at dinner with Mr. Parker three days in the week. Lopez was her husband, and would be the father of her child, and she would make herself one with him. It mattered not what people might call him, — or even her. She had acted on her own judgment in marrying him, and had been a fool; and now she would bear the punishment without complaint.
When dinner was over Mrs. Parker helped the servant to remove the dinner things from the single sitting-room, and the two men went out to smoke their cigars in the covered porch. Mrs. Parker herself took out the whisky and hot water, and sugar and lemons, and then returned to have a little matronly discourse with her guest. “Does Mr. Lopez ever take a drop too much?” she asked.
“Never,” said Mrs. Lopez.
“Perhaps it don’t affect him as it do Sexty. He ain’t a drinker; — certainly not. And he’s one that works hard every day of his life. But he’s getting fond of it these last twelve months, and though he don’t take very much it hurries him and flurries him.
For our Prime Minister Cocktail Talk the second, one of the best-named characters in the book pops up: Sextus Parker, nicknamed Sexty. Not at all what you might expect from the modern usage, or near-usage, of the word or words contained within. He’s a chap who works with Ferdinand Lopez – be sure to read The Prime Minister Cocktail Talk Part I to learn more about the book, the main characters, and my take on it in short form (cause who has time for long form?), and such. Anyway, back to Sexty. In the below you see he likes both sherry and brandy (who doesn’t?), and that the consumption of such effects his confidence, much like it does for modern folks.
Sextus Parker still thought that things would come round. Ferdinand, – he always now called his friend by his Christian name, – Ferdinand was beautifully, seraphically confident. And Sexty, who had been in a manner magnetized by Ferdinand, was confident too, – at certain periods of the day. He was very confident when he had had his two or three glasses of sherry at luncheon, and he was often delightfully confident with his cigar and brandy-and-water at night. But there were periods in the morning in which he would shake with fear and sweat with dismay.
Another Anthony Trollope novel I can’t believe hasn’t been featured here with a Cocktail Talk quote already (considering how many Trollope Cocktail Talks there are), The Prime Minister is one of the Palliser series of novels, which revolve in the main around the 1800s political scene. Fictional, I suppose I should say, though many non-fictional personages are mentioned, too. And with characters coming in and out of the novels, if you read a few in a row, or even over a series of years, they become as lifelike to you as any historical figure, perhaps (and perhaps that was part of Trollope’s genius). This book, like many of his, has multiple plot lines running, and he weaves them together fairly well, but not, for me, as well as my favorites of the Palliser books, Phineas Finn and Phineas Redux – though our friend Phineas does show in The Prime Minister, which made me happy! Not that this isn’t a grand read (and some like it as much or more than any Trollope – Tolstoy, for one, and he knows thing), but, and I can admit it could be that I re-read it recently directly after re-reading Phineas Redux, I personally don’t love it as much as other Trollope’s. I love it, much of it, don’t get me wrong. Just not as much! It centers around our old friend Plantagenet Palliser (who, along with his awesome wife Glencora, star in the book that kicks off the series, and then show throughout), who becomes Prime Minister, for better or worse. And then also centers for much of the book around a man named Ferdinand Lopez (a foreigner by birth, or so thought, and whose characteristics and ethnicity are often discussed in a manner that while mirroring I’d guess the manner of the time, doesn’t sit well often in our time – Trollope was a very accurate mirror, for better or worse I suppose), who might not be as savory as a gentleman should be, though I don’t want to give away too much, and his wife-to-be and then wife, Emily Wharton. The plots intermingle and outer mingle, and I found myself wishing for more of the former, but that may vary on the reader. What won’t vary is a wish for the time when everyone had sherry for breakfast, as in the below quote.
At about nine the Duke had returned, and was eating his very simple dinner in the breakfast-room – a beefsteak and a potato, with a glass of sherry and Apollinaris water. No man more easily satisfied as to what he and and drank lived in London in those days. As regarded the eating and drinking he dined alone, but his wife sat with him and waited on him, having sent the servant out of the room. “I have told her Majesty that I would do the best I could,” said the Duke.
“Then you are Prime Minister.”
“Not at all. Mr. Daubeny is Prime Minister. I have undertaken to form a ministry, if I find it practicable, with the assistance of such friends as I possess. I never felt before that I had to lean so entirely on others as I do now.”
We have had a fair amount of Hal Masur Cocktail Talks (or Harold Masur, or Harold Q. Masur, or Harry M) here on the Spiked Punch, mostly – maybe all? – featuring either his main character, lawyer Scott Jordan, or at least from a book where Mr. Jordan is the main character, getting into scraps, solving crimes, lawyering, chatting up the ladies, knocking out (though he’s not much of a punch thrower, more using his wits, but, you know, needs must) the cads, and tippling the occasional, or more than, drink. The Big Money is no different, and well worth picking up – I did, not too long back, as I work to round out my Masuring. Scott is up to his ears in a murder revolving around some, financiers, shall we say, or high finance at least, and a fat lot of bills missing or thought missing, and then another murder, and, well, a dame and danger and drinks! You get the picture. The below is a good way to start the new year, too, by the way (happy 2024!), which may lead us to lots of drinking. Here’s to your year having not too much fat around the edge, and not being force fed, and full of enough vermouth, gin, and lemons.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“No grain. All the fat is around the edge. Which means the poor beast was force fed. That sirloin over there, Mr. Hutch. Trim it, please.”
“Let’s get some vegetables,” I said. “Broccoli, Asparagus, and baked Idahos. I’m a growing boy.”
For the first time, it seemed, the spectre of tragedy dissolved from her memory and in repose her face had an eager gamin quality. I was under a full cargo of provisions when she opened the door to her apartment and led the way to a kitchen where I unloaded. She shooed me into the living room, telling me to find a drink.
The furnishing had been selected with taste and designed for comfort. There was a bar of knotty pine, with a white micarta top, stocked with an assortment of beverages. I found vermouth and a bottle of gin and prepared the mixture, floating a couple of lemon peels on top. I took my drink to the sofa and relaxed.
We have one more stop in Ireland, via Anthony Trollope’s novel (one of five he wrote set there) of upper-ish class romance, mystery, and such during the beginnings of the Irish famine. If you’ve missed the Castle Richmond Part I and Part II Cocktail Talks, then please, take a trip to them now (and for that matter, why not try out all the Anthony Trollope Cocktail Talks). Once back, take a step through the below quote into the Kanturk Hotel (and bar, moreso), where you’ll meet the charming Fanny O’Dwyer, and learn some charming phrases for drinks.
Behind the coffee-room was the bar, from which Fanny O’Dwyer dispensed dandies of punch and goes of brandy to her father’s customers from Kanturk. For at this, as at other similar public-houses in Irish towns, the greater part of the custom on which the publican depends came to him from the inhabitants of one particular country district. A large four-wheeled vehicle, called a long car, which was drawn by three horses, and travelled over a mountain road at the rate of four Irish miles an hour, came daily from Kanturk to Cork, and daily returned. This public conveyance stopped in Cork at the Kanturk Hotel, and was owned by the owner of that house, in partnership with a brother in the same trade located in Kanturk. It was Mr. O’Dwyer’s business to look after this concern, to see to the passengers and the booking, the oats, and hay, and stabling, while his well-known daughter, the charming Fanny O’Dwyer, took care of the house, and dispensed brandy and whisky to the customers from Kanturk.
To tell the truth, the bar was a much more alluring place than the coffee-room, and Fanny O’Dwyer a more alluring personage than Tom, the one-eyed waiter.
Those who have visited Spiked Punch before (and really, who hasn’t?) know that I have a love of Anthony Trollope books, as there are a number of Trollope Cocktail Talks underlining that love. Please, go read them all! But I haven’t yet had one I don’t believe from Castle Richmond, one of five of his novels set in Ireland, a place where he lived for a good chunk of time, working for the post and kicking off his writing career. It’s perhaps my favorite of the five? Perhaps. Taking place at the beginning of the Irish famine, it has some harrowing moments and insights into that tragedy, though the core story itself is of a more personal family tragedy, or mystery, or both. Tragestery? There are the normal Trollopean well-developed characters a’plenty, mostly of the upperish class or want to be kind, but with enough others sprinkled in to keep it interesting. As well as the main did-she-or-they-or-didn’t-they kind of plot in a way, with enough side plots and history sprinkled in to keep it fresh. And of course, or we wouldn’t be here, a nice Cocktail Talky quote or two. At least two. Maybe three? Come back and see! Our first starts at a bar-rooming-house spot, where two of the more disreputable, shall we say, characters are living at for a chunk of the book. Living and drinking at, that is.
“You are cold I suppose, governor, and had better get a bit of something to eat, and a little tea.”
“And put my feet in hot water, and tallow my nose, and go to bed, hadn’t I? Miss O’Dwyer, I’ll trouble you to mix me a glass of brandy-punch. Of all the roads I ever travelled, that’s the longest and hardest to get over. Dashed, if I didn’t begin to think I’d never be here.” And so saying he flung himself into a chair, and put up his feet on the two hobs.
There was a kettle on one of them, which the young lady pushed a little nearer to the hot coals, in order to show that the water should be boiling; and as she did so Aby gave her a wink over his father’s shoulder, by way of conveying to her an intimation that “the governor was a little cut,” or in other language tipsy, and that the brandy-punch should be brewed with a discreet view to past events of the same description. All which Miss O’Dwyer perfectly understood.
Have we had enough Cocktail Talking from the Dickens’ classic Barnaby Rudge? I doubt it! But we are going to turn the last page – or have the last quote – for now, calling last call with the below (be sure to learn more about the book, as well as enjoy more Barnaby Rudge Cocktail Talks by reading Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV! And why not read all the Charles Dickens Cocktail Talks? There is no good answer to that question). This snippet takes us back to the Maypole, the bar parts of the book revolve around, and is such a dandy description of the place, I wish I could dive right into the page and be there (the bar, that is, not the page). What a spot! And, what a book.
Old John would have it that they must sit in the bar, and nobody objecting, into the bar they went. All bars are snug places, but the Maypole’s was the very snuggest, cosiest, and completest bar, that ever the wit of man devised. Such amazing bottles in old oaken pigeon-holes; such gleaming tankards dangling from pegs at about the same inclination as thirsty men would hold them to their lips; such sturdy little Dutch kegs ranged in rows on shelves; so many lemons hanging in separate nets, and forming the fragrant grove already mentioned in this chronicle, suggestive, with goodly loaves of snowy sugar stowed away hard by, of punch, idealised beyond all mortal knowledge; such closets, such presses, such drawers full of pipes, such places for putting things away in hollow window-seats, all crammed to the throat with eatables, drinkables, or savoury condiments; lastly, and to crown all, as typical of the immense resources of the establishment, and its defiances to all visitors to cut and come again, such a stupendous cheese!
For our fourth (but not our last!) visit within the pages of the Charles Dickens delight, the criminally under-read Barnaby Rudge, we get a view into some family relations, here between the, I’d say, villain of the piece, or one of such (perhaps the most villainous, though also well admired by many), and his son – who is, by curious ways and means, one of the heroes of the piece. While Mr. Chester, the father, may not be one who induces admiration within a reader (or not many of such), you can’t fault him for his views on wine in the below. Which goes to show that few are totally irredeemable. One hopes at least. Avoid being such yourself by reading the Barnaby Rudge Cocktail Talks Part I, Part II, and Part III (and really, checking out all the Charles Dickens Cocktail Talks will probably make you heroic, too).
“My dear Edward,” said Mr. Chester at length, with a most engaging laugh, “do not extend your drowsy influence to the decanter. Suffer that to circulate, let your spirits be never so stagnant.”
Edward begged his pardon, passed it, and relapsed into his former state.
“You do wrong not to fill your glass,” said Mr. Chester, holding up his own before the light. “Wine in moderation — not in excess, for that makes men ugly — has a thousand pleasant influences. It brightens the eye, improves the voice, imparts a new vivacity to one’s thoughts and conversation: you should try it, Ned.”
“Ah, father!” cried his son, “if —”
“My good fellow,” interposed the parent hastily, as he set down his glass, and raised his eyebrows with a startled and horrified expression, “for Heaven’s sake don’t call me by that obsolete and ancient name. Have some regard for delicacy. Am I grey, or wrinkled, do I go on crutches, have I lost my teeth, that you adopt such a mode of address? Good God, how very coarse!”
