February 18, 2014
There are a number of things we miss in the modern age: Myrna Loy, zoot suits, un-ironic swing bands, speakeasies that aren’t just trying to be trendy, and more. We also miss the chance to have “bootlegger” on our resumes. Ah well, at least the unmissable Compleat Imbiber # 2, itself a bit old (from 1958) lets us relive the bootlegging days in an essay it contains. An essay from which I present to you the below quote.
The first violinist, an expert chemist, skillfully diluted the contents of gin, rum, Scotch whisky, Bénédictine, and Cognac bottles which he bought at the crew’s fifty per cent reduction from the second-class barman. (In those days of Honesty, it was ‘second’ and not ‘cabin’ class.)
—Joseph Wechsberg, Confessions of a Bootlegger
Tags: Benedictine, Cocktail Talk, Cognac, Complete Imbiber, Confessions of a Bootlegger, Gin, Rum, Scotch whisky, The Compleat Imbiber
Posted in: Cocktail Talk, Gin, Rum
February 11, 2014
I’ve had a few fair cocktail talk posts from Mr. Raymond Chandler, one of the few true masters of American detective and hard-boiled stories. And I’m guessing you know him already, because he’s pretty knowable, and, well, I think a lot of you. So, I won’t stand here gabbing, and instead just go into this amazing gin quote from The Lady in the Lake (which the New York Times no less called “one of his best”). I’ve felt a bit the way Mr. Marlowe feels below (and yes, I’m calling a fictional character “Mr. Marlowe.” But I think he deserves that, real or not).
I smelled of gin. No 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. I smelled like dead toads.
–Raymond Chandler, The Lady in the Lake
January 21, 2014
Here’s a wee cocktail-spoons-worth of wisdom from the hopefully not completely forgotten American pocket-pulps-and-mysteries writer Harold Q. Masur (sometimes known as Hal). I tend to agree more with the latter sentiment in his first sentence below, though I’m not necessarily opposed to a good morning drink, unless I have a long afternoon meeting (hey, no need to nap in a meeting – I like to nap on the couch). Oh, this book also has one of the finest titles I’ve ever seen. And a great cover, too. Heck, pick it up, have a Scotch, and start reading.
Generally, I don’t like to consume liquor before lunch, but drinking with a man is a good recipe for getting on his right side. Muir was in the mood to talk and I ordered double Scotches to help loosen his tongue. The time of day meant nothing to him.
— Harold Q. Masur, So Rich, So Lovely, and So Dead, 1952
December 17, 2013
My wishy-washy-ness with Erle Stanley Gardner, and his version of Perry Mason, as well as my love of Perry Mason-as-played-by-Raymond-Burr, have been detailed on this blog in the past. So, I won’t weigh into them here (no need for me to get haunted anyway). But I still can’t stay away from his books when I find them in their pocket-sized printings, cause the covers tend to be so darn swell. And the insides certainly aren’t bad, and usually contain nuggets of joy like the below.
He went to the room, pulled the curtains, ordered four bottles of ginger ale, with plenty of ice, and got a quart of whiskey from the bell boy. Then he sat in the overstuffed chair, with his feet on the bed, and smoked.
— The Case of the Velvet Claws, Erle Stanley Gardner
December 10, 2013
Interestingly, much like Rex Stout (who I just Cocktail Talked below), I haven’t read a lot of Carter Dickson, even though his mysteries fall into some areas I like inhabiting. Example A: his Sir Henry Merrivale mysteries, of which The Punch and Judy Murders is one. They’re full of twists, take place in Jolly Old England, and have a main mystery-solver who is quirky and overweight. I’m for all of those things! But I still haven’t read much of Mr. Dickson. But this book was fairly rapid, had a good ending, and some memorable moments. Perhaps none as much as when one of the characters shows up with a tray of delicious drinks.
Charters handed round some admirable gin fizzes. A little of his old sharpness, his old doggedness, had come back when he had begun to outline his facts. He sat down on the veranda rail, his arms folded and his hands cradled under bony elbows.
— Carter Dickson, The Punch and Judy Murders
December 3, 2013
I haven’t read a whole lot of Rex Stout books, which is a bit weird, as his famous detective Nero Wolfe and the era he wrote in both hit me fairly square in my detective-y wheelhouse (not to mention that I love the covers, as I tend to, of books from that age). But hey, these things happen. However, when I came across a copy of his book entitled The Case of the Red Box, in a pocket-sized copy and with a cover that I couldn’t resist, well, I couldn’t resist. And it was a good read, for sure, with multiple murders, a great twist-y-ness, and a lot of beer. Perhaps the strangest thing about Nero Wolfe isn’t that he never leaves his house (or rarely), or that he takes hours every day to deal with his orchids, or that he only eats at home, etc. But that he drinks a ton of beer while interviewing suspects. Awesome! However, the below quote is even better, so I skipped the beer . . . this time.
You do shorthand in that book? Good: put this down. McNair was an inveterate eater of snails, and he preferred calvados to cognac. His wife died in childbirth because he was insisting on being an artist and was too poor and incompetent to provide proper care for her.
–Rex Stout, The Case of the Red Box
November 5, 2013
My un-stopping love for the great English novelist Anthony Trollope continues with each of his books I read (there are a lot, luckily). Recently I finished the lesser-known treasure Is He Popenjoy?, all about class and legacy and inheritance in multiple ways. What I wish now is that some fine bartender out there would make up a drink called The Popenjoy. I would pay a pretty penny for that, if it was awesome. It would have to contain cherry brandy, which is mentioned in the books, as well as curaçao, which is in the dandy quote below (oh, if you do make up a drink here, go with Pierre Ferrand curaçao, please). If you create The Popenjoy, please let me know asap.
She was in the habit of sitting by him and talking to him late in the evening, while he was sipping his curaçao and soda-water, and had become accustomed to hear odd things from him. He liked her because he could say what he please to her, and she would laugh and listen and show no offence.
–Anthony Trollope, Is He Popenjoy?
October 29, 2013
Hello dear hearts. There’s time I think for one more quote from the The Compleat Imbiber #5, which we’ve been talking up here on the ol’ Spiked Punch due to it’s greatness and my love of The Compleat Imbiber series. This time, it’s from a piece called Four O’Clock at the Five O’Clock, by a gentleman named Hugh Massingham. It’s mainly a look at American drinking establishments by someone not native to this country, and is built off a stop at a spot in Denver (I wonder if it’s still there) called the Five O’Clock, which didn’t at first seem friendly, but which had, from the below quote, quite a friendly line up for the times.
Suddenly, behind the bar, artfully lit from below, is a blaze of welcoming friends. There is good old Johnnie Walker, as spry as ever. There is that authentic notes of Floreat Etona, Harvey’s sherry. There is historic Beefeater – the snob gin in the United States – and those two dogs yapping away on behalf of Black and White, and soft-tasting ding-dong Bells and kindly tempting Teachers and Cutty Sarks in full sail. There is bicarbonate of soda on draught and tots of Alka Seltzer – the necessities for a hangover morning, familiar sights in an English bathroom, but unknown in English pubs. True, there are a number of bottles that are strangers, and that wink away at you with the offer of novel and perhaps dangerous pleasures. Leroux’s ‘Ginger-Flavoured Brandy’ should surely tickle some secret spot hitherto unexplored by the milder and less adventurous brews of your native land? Then there is gay Dixie Rose, a cross, perhaps, between a Gone-With-The-Wind lady and a gypsy, who is offering for your relaxation in this subdued light a bottle of London dry gin. There is Hill Billy Reserve Whiskey, with its suggestion of some smoky still in a mountain chasm. There is Popcorn Straight Cut Whiskey, made, apparently – and yet can this be true? – from the same fat white salted ears piled up in the dish by your elbow. There is ancient Carstairs (established 1788) with his White Seal Blended. There is good old Thompson – don’t let’s forget his blended bourbon. And there is Vernon and Paddy and a bottle with a playing-card label, showing a King both face upwards and face downwards – delights still not tested after all these weeks of travel.
— Hugh Massingham, Four O’Clock at the Five O’Clock, The Compleat Imbiber #5
Tags: Bars, bars. whiskey, Beefeater, Bells, Cocktail Talk, Cutty Sark, Hill Billy Reserve whiskey, Johnnie Walker, lots and lots of booze, Popcorn Whiskey, Teachers, The Compleat Imbiber, White Seal
Posted in: Bars, Cocktail Talk, Whiskey
