August 1, 2017
Not too long ago (and only the briefest of moments in the grand scheme of things), I had a Cocktail Talk post up from the very first Inspector Maigret book by George Simenon, Pietr the Latvian. I’ve had a number of Maigret Cocktail Talks, btw. Foolish as I was way back in those days, I thought I’d only need one post from the book. But, now that I am older and wiser, I realize that two are needed, no demanded. Really, this second Cocktail Talk from our (if we read the books in order, which I did not, but for the sake of things, let’s pretend) first sampling of the stoic French Inspector, is an ideal companion to the first, so it’d be a shame not to quote it here:
Maigret had ordered a vermouth. He looked even taller and wider than ever in the confined space of the bar. He didn’t take his eyes off the Latvian.
He was having something like double vision. Just as had happened to him in the hotel lobby, he could see one image superimposed on another: Behind the current scene, he had a vision of the squalid bar in Fecamp. Pietr was going double. Maigret could see him in his cinnamon suite and in his worn-out raincoat at the same time.
“I’m telling you I’d rather do that than get beaten up!” one of the builders exclaimed, banging his glass down on the counter.
Pietr was now on his third glass of green liquid. Maigret could smell the aniseed in it.
–George Simenon, Pietr the Latvian
July 18, 2017
I recently picked up a little book (just a little too big to fit in a shirt pocket) called
The World’s Best 100 Detective Stories – my book is volume one of ten – published in 1929. I won’t say that I disagree with an editor’s prerogative, but even as someone who has read a lot of detective fiction from many time periods, I hadn’t heard of many of the authors within, and wasn’t blown away by some of the choices. But it’s a fun little book to have no matter what, and in one of the stories, “The Sting of the Wasp,” by Richard Connell, there’s a fair amount of cocktail-ing, before a murder. Or is it?
“Well, the cocktails warmed up Oakley, made him communicative – for him. We were talking along about nothing in particular, when suddenly he burst out, ‘That cur, Cope! I saw him today, looking at me with those evil green eyes of his. I’ll never be happy – or safe – while he’s in the world. I’d kill him like a rat if I thought I could get away with it!’
I told Oakley he was a fool to talk like that – to me or anybody. He calmed down, and said he didn’t mean it. But he did, Matthew.”
“No doubt. Well, what them?”
“Here is what happened tonight: Oakley had dinner alone. He drank too much – four stiff cocktails, a half-bottle of Sauternes, and a highball.”
–Richard Connell, “The Sting of the Wasp”
July 11, 2017
Hey, it’s time for another Cocktail Talk featuring George Simenon’s legendary French detective Maigret, the stoic, large, over-coated, café-visiting crime solver. If you haven’t yet, check out past Maigret Cocktail Talks. This particular one, though, is from the very first of his books, which I was super excited to find in a little bookstore in Edmunds, WA. Sometimes the world lines up in great ways. And sometimes you have to drink an absinthe substitute with guttersnips in a dive bar.
Overall the man fitted a type that Maigret knew well: the migrant low-lifer of Eastern European origin who slept in squalid lodging houses and sometimes in railway stations. A type not often seen outside Paris, but accustomed to travelling in third-class carriages when not riding the footboards or hopping freight trains.
He got proof of his insight a few minutes later. Fécamp doesn’t have any genuine low dives, but behind the harbour there are two or three squalid bars favoured by dockhands and seamen. Ten metres before these places there’s a regular café kept clean and bright. The man in the trench coat walked right past it and straight into the least prepossessing of the bars where he put his elbow on the counter in a way that Maigret saw right through.
It was the straightforwardly vulgar body-language of a guttersnipe. Even if he’d tried, Maigret couldn’t have imitated it. The inspector followed the man into the bar. He’d ordered an absinthe substitute and was just standing there, wordless, with a blank stare on his face. He didn’t register Maigret’s presence, though the inspector was now right next to him.
–George Simenon, Pietr the Latvian
June 27, 2017
I earlier had a Day Keene Cocktail Talk (there are many Day Keene’s here on the Spiked Punch, cause he’s grand in the pulp way) from the story collection Death March of the Dancing Dolls (one of a series of collections of his pulp mag stories and yarns and legends and tales). But guess what – one was not enough! I almost forgot about the below beaut, which reminds us how long two of my favorites have been coupling in glasses and people’s minds. Sadly, the gent rolling it out isn’t, oh, the most lovable of narrators, and . . . well, you’ll have to read the story!
The only bright spot in the picture was Connie. She’d been a hasher when I met her, and a good one. She took to the job in the joint across from the City Hall like Benedictine to brandy.
–Day Keene, Mighty Like a Rogue
June 20, 2017
My love of
Anthony Trollope is much documented on the many pages of this blog (so many, many pages). You probably are sick of hearing me go on and on, in my spot as the Trollope standard bearer for this here century. But maybe you aren’t – I’m going to believe that, and drop another Trollope quote in, this time from
The Claverings, which, as the back cover tells you, is one of Trollope’s “three faultless books.” They all seem fairly faultless to me (well, okay, maybe that’s overstating), but I do wonder what the back cover blurber thought the
other two were? I’ll never know, but I do know that I don’t drink enough port, so if you want to bring me a bottle (as in the below) I won’t turn it down.
When dinner was over, Burton got up from his seat. “Harry,” said he, “do you like good wine?” Harry said that he did. Whatever women may say about wild fowl, men never profess an indifference to good wine, although there is a theory about the world, quite as incorrect as it is general, that they have given up drinking it. “Indeed I do,” said Harry. “Then I’ll give you a bottle of port,” said Burton, and so saying he left the room.
“I’m very glad you have come to-day,” said Jones, with much gravity. “He never gives me any of that when I’m alone with him; and he never, by any means, brings it out for company.”
“You don’t mean to accuse him of drinking it alone, Tom?” said his sister, laughing.
“I don’t know when he drinks it; I only know when he doesn’t.”
The wine was decanted with as much care as had been given to the concoction of the gravy, and the clearness of the dark liquid was scrutinized with an eye that was full of anxious care. “Now, Cissy, what do you think of that? She knows a glass of good wine when she gets it, as well as you do Harry, in spite of her contempt for the duck.”
— Anthony Trollope, The Claverings
May 23, 2017
Welcome to the final entry strolling through Paris drinks had in this particular Maigret story (be sure to read Part I and Part II so as not to miss anything, and for that matter, don’t miss all the Maigret Cocktail Talks, and if you want to know even more about his drinking, check out this study of Maigret drinks). This takes place near the end of the case, and finally Maigret himself is getting a drink (well, he may have had a few more – I couldn’t write out the whole book here!), with one of his police compadres.
“Did you find her?” asked the waiter.
“Yes.”
“Nice, isn’t she? What will you have?”
“A hot grog for me.”
“The same for me.”
“Two grogs, two!”
“This afternoon, when you’ve had some sleep, you’ll be writing your report.”
— George Simenon, Maigret and the Lazy Burglar
May 16, 2017
If you missed our first bout of May Maigret Cocktail Talking, and want to learn more about the burglaring, then by all means, please go read Part I. I’ll wait.
Back? Awesome! Let’s get into our second quote, which is taking place in a small bistro, with Maigret questioning the publican (or, here, I suppose, bisto-lican), who relates a story of said lazy burglar and his desire for . . . well, just read it, why dontcha.
“I was busy with the coffee percolator. I didn’t hear any footsteps. And when I turned round, there he was, leaning on the bar. It gave me quite a turn.”
“That’s why you remembered it?”
“And for another reason, because he asked me if I had any real Kirsch, not the fancy stuff. . . We don’t get too many orders for that. I took a bottle from the back row – that one there, with the German words on the label – and he seemed pleased. He said:
“‘That’s the real thing.’”
“He took the time to warm the glass in his hand, and drank slowly, looking at the clock. I realized he was wondering whether to ask for another, and when I held out the bottle he didn’t say no.”
— George Simenon, Maigret and the Lazy Burglar
May 9, 2017
It’s May, which means this is the perfect time for some Maigret-based Cocktail Talks (because both words start with M – seems like a great reason to me). If for some absolutely insane reason you don’t know who Maigret is, well, friend, you’re in for a treat. He’s the Parisian Police Inspector who stars in many, many mysteries written by the prolific George Simenon. I’ve read a fair amount of Maigret stories and novels, and yet I feel there are still a whole bunch yet to discover – I’m in for treats, too! This particular book revolves around some Paris police and judiciary intrigues, a very proficient and friendly burglar found dead early in the morning, and a series of hold-ups. As well as a series of drinks – Maigret being fond of a number of liquor’d libations (read more about it all here). There’s enough good Cocktail Talk-ing in this tale that I thinks I’m going to have to have multiple quotes, starting with this one (where, funny enough, Maigret isn’t drinking at all):
“Haven’t you anything to drink?”
“You’re thirsty?”
“No. It’s for you. I’d like you to take a nip of something.”
He remembered she was fond of her glass, and at this, sure enough, she went to the dining-room sideboard and brought out a bottle of plum brandy.
Even at such a moment as this, she could resist cheating a bit.
“I was keeping it for my son . . . He sometimes took a drop after dinner.”
— George Simenon, Maigret and the Lazy Burglar
