July 2, 2013
I’ve mentioned Charles Williams on here before, but it’s high time he’s on here again, as he’s one of the pulpiest pulpers out there – at least from the books I’ve read, and I’m always looking for more. If you happen to have any old Charles Williams books, actually, and want to give them to me, I will buy you many drinks. Promise. Anyway, the book of his I’ve read most recently is called A Touch of Death, and was reprinted not long ago by the fine folks at Hard Case Crime. It features a guy who gets himself into all kinds of trouble, mostly due to a women that has been called “the toughest babe you’ll meet in fiction,” by Mystery File, and I couldn’t agree more. She is bad news, people. The below quote is good news, however.
We went up on the outside stairs at the rear of the building and in through the kitchen. She pulled a bottle of bourbon out of a cupboard and set it on the drain.
‘Mix yourself a drink, and go into the living room. Soda and ice cubes in the refrigerator.’
‘I hate to drink alone this early in the day,’ I said. ‘It scares me.’
She smiled. ‘All right. If you insist.’
–Charles Williams, A Touch of Death
June 18, 2013
I’ve had some Cocktail Talk from Cornell Woolrich here on this blog already, and sung his praises. Which are deserved, cause he created the whole genre of “noir” as much as anyone, and was a pulp-a-teer of the first rate. His book Black Alibi fits as noir, too, though it’s different in a way, as it takes place in South America, has a killer jaguar (or does it?), and is told from a number of perspectives, including the victims in the book. It took me a bit to get in to, but once I did, I was hooked. There’s also lots of drinks and bar talk, including the following, which is part of one character’s musings about the bar scene throughout an evening.
Midnight to about two was the zenith. Meridian of her “day.” That was when the shows let out. They let out late in Ciudad Real. The Casino Bleu, the Madrid out in the park (she never went out there, though; too far to walk back in case you didn’t connect), the Jockey Club, the Tabain, the Select. Those were the places to seek out then. This was the cream of the night life, swarming with the sports, the swells, the heavy spenders. Most of them had cabaret entertainment; if not, tango bands and dancing at the very least. Benedictine, then. Crème de menthe. Sometimes even Champagne.
–Cornell Woolrich, Black Alibi
June 4, 2013
David Goodis was once called “the poet of the losers” and while I’m not 100% sure that’s 100% apt, it fits pretty well. He wrote books that take “noir” and dip it in a syrup of painful luck combined with serious sadness. Perhaps the most famous (though not the only one made into a movie by the French, who love themselves some Goodis) is Shoot the Piano Player. A fine read. But the one I’ve just finished is Black Friday (which, by the way, has nothing outside of making you question the world in common with the day after Thanksgiving), in which a guy on the run for killing his brother steals a coat, runs into some bad men, then some bad women, then cuts a guy up a feeds him into the furnace . . . and it goes downhill from there. A fine read, which at one point ends up with a lot of gin being consumed:
Charley took the bottle and began pouring the gin into a water glass. He got the glass three-quarters full. He lifted the glass to his mouth and drank the gin as though it was water. The radio was playing more bebop. It was Dizzy Gillespie again and Dizzy’s trumpet went up and up and up and way up.
–David Goodis, Black Friday
April 30, 2013
Well, it’s been a fine week (or, thereabouts. Or, my week may be different than yours. One of those) of Dickens Cocktail Talk posts, with all of them from his lesser-known, but still a book that should be on your “must-read” list, novel The Old Curiosity Shop. You know what’s funny? At least relating to the book and the Cocktail Talking? I could do, oh, at least four more posts with tipsy quotes from the book. Dickens, naturally, liked his drink a bit, and his drinkers, and his bars, and so his books tend to be dandy spots for those us who don’t mind a drink to dwell in. This last quote has to do with the devilish villain of the book, a certain Mr. Quilip, looking in at his lawyer, who is also villainous, but in a weaker and (to be honest) less admirable way. If you’re going to be a villain, at least don’t be mealy-mouthed about it. And while I can’t like him, I can’t really fault his drinking choices.
Applying his eye to this convenient place, he descried Mr. Brass seated at the table with pen, ink, and paper, and the case-bottle of rum – his own case-bottle, and his own particular Jamaica – convenient to his hand; with hot water, fragrant lemons, white lump sugar, and all things fitting; from which materials, Sampson, by no means insensible to their claims upon his attention, had compounded a mighty glass of punch reeking hot; which he was at that very moment stirring up with a teaspoon, and contemplating with a look in which a faint assumption of sentimental regret struggled but weakly with a bland and comfortable joy.
–Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop
April 26, 2013
If you didn’t read The Old Curiosity Shop, Part I, you might want to, or just check out all Charles Dickens Spiked Punch posts. Cause I don’t want to take a lot of pre-amble, as this post will have a quote from that classic book, as well as a recipe that relates to the quote (cause I like to have Friday Night Cocktail recipes on Fridays, and wanted to somehow tie it all together. Make sense?). So, here’s the Cocktail Talk, Dickens’ style.
Presently he returned, followed by the boy from the public house, who bore in one hand a plate of bread and beef, and in the other a great pot, filled with some very fragrant compound, which sent forth a grateful steam, and was indeed choice Purl, made after a particular recipes which Mr. Swiveller had imparted to the landlord at a period when he was deep in his books and desirous to conciliate his friendship. Relieving the boy of his burden at the door, and charging his little companion to fasten it to prevent surprise, Mr. Swiveller followed her into the kitchen.
Now, to follow that up, here’s a recipe for Purl from Good Spirits, so you can make your own to sip on while reading Dickens on a cold spring night. Or, to have with friends while you’re acting out scenes from your favorite Dickens’ books. This is something you do, right?
Purl
6 ounces porter
6 ounces ale (a pale ale works)
1 ounce gin
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1. Add the porter, ale, and ginger to a small saucepan. Heat over medium-heat, until warm but not boiling.
2. Carefully pour the porter-ale mixture into a pint glass that has been slightly warmed (by running it under warm water).
3. Add the gin. Stir once with a spoon. Sprinkle the freshly grated nutmeg over the top.
Tags: cocktail recipe, Cocktail Recipes, Cocktail Talk, Friday Night Cocktail. What I'm Drinking, Gin, ginger, Good Spirits, nutmeg, pale ale, porter, Purl, The Old Curiosity Shop
Posted in: beer, Charles Dickens, Cocktail Recipes, Cocktail Talk, Gin, Good Spirits, Recipes
April 23, 2013
Hey, readers of this blog, you should know this: I’m a big fan of Charles Dickens. Heck, there are a couple Charles Dickens Cocktail Talk posts on here already (as well as a few other odds and sods related to him). He had the stuff, in my opinion. And, so I regularly re-read him, and recently did such with The Old Curiosity Shop. Not my top Dickens pick – not sure what is, really – but still awesomely awesome (I wonder what he would say if someone referred to him that way, way back when). And full of the lovely cast of Dickensian characters, good, bad, really bad, silly, stupid, wonderful, and tipsy. Of course, the latter are what we’re focusing on here. And the book is so filled with good drinkerly quotes that we’re gonna do a whole week of them! Or more. Who knows? Only me, Dickens, and the pony. This first quote’s from the early parts of the book, and makes some true points on soda water and human hair.
He began by remarking that soda-water, though a good thing in the abstract was apt to lie cold upon the stomach unless qualified with ginger, or a small infusion of brandy, which latter article he held to be preferable in all cases, saving for the one consideration of expense. Nobody venturing to dispute these positions, he proceeded to observe that the human hair was a great retainer of tobacco-smoke, and that the young gentlemen of Westminster and Eton, after eating vast quantities of apples to conceal any scent of cigars from their anxious friends, were usually detected in consequence of their heads possessing this remarkable property.
–Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop
April 16, 2013
Somehow, the other day when I was going on and on about Day Keene and how much I dig him as a writer of the pulps and pulpy and mysteries and noirs and their ilk, and dropped down a Martini quote from the fine once-fit-in-your-pocket-book now part of a worthy three-novels-in-one-book collection from Stark House called Dead Dolls Don’t Talk, well, I meant to put in two quotes. And that, friends, is what’s called a long sentence. And a mistake I mean to rectify by putting in the second quote right now (cause I don’t want you to miss it. And want you to read the book. So, go on, do both).
Coe put a cigarette in his mouth and offered the package to his employer. “The hell of it is we haven’t any way of knowing for how long you may be stuck.”
Hart lit his first cigarette of the day and enjoyed it. “That’s the hell of it,” he agreed. “But if I’m not back in a couple of days you might try sending out a Saint Bernard with a keg of dry Martinis.”
–Day Keene, Dead Dolls Don’t Talk
*See all Day Keene Cocktail Talks
April 9, 2013
Day Keene is one of my favorite pulp-ateers. And by that I don’t mean someone who does puppet shows with puppets made of fruit. Though that would be, um, interesting, too. No, I mean one of the writers who wrote in the middle of last century, and who wrote books that usually fit in your pocket and stories in magazine with vaguely lurid names. Both genres tended to be about crimes, criminal, down-on-their luckers, drinkers, back-alley brawlers, just-in-troublers, and anyone who’s run into, or looked for, trouble. Day Keene wrote a whole giant bar full of tales featuring those kind of folks, with tight plots that keep you on the edge and wondering how it’ll all end in a manner that’s not quite bleak, but close enough to call out to bleak without a raised voice. Anywho, his characters usually need a stiff drink, and Dead Dolls Don’t Talk (which is part of an amazing collection of three Day Keene novels reprinted by Stark House) isn’t any different. As this quote shows us:
As he sipped his second drink Hart gave the girl her due. Peggy made good Martinis, albeit they were a trifle strong and she served them in Old-fashioned glasses. The date, if it could be called that, was proceeding according to pattern. Peggy had made the usual announcement that she wanted to change into something cooler and more comfortable. However, instead of donning the usual filmy negligee, she’d put on a smart red shantung coolie coat that ended halfway down her thighs, creating the illusion that there was nothing by flesh and girl under the provocative garment.
—Dead Dolls Don’t Talk, Day Keene
*See all Day Keene Cocktail Talks
