January 6, 2009
Wait, hold up, before introducing this quote, let me say happy freaking New Year booze-y pals. Here’s to a fantastically tipsy 2009. And, while it’s not 01/01/01/09 (the first second of the first day and all), it’s still the year’s start, and this quote is a sillily lovely way to start said year. It’s another bubbling gem from The Complete Imbiber #1, from an essay by Paul Holt (who, I feel bad to admit, I don’t know much about–any help?) called “The Wine and the Waistcoat.” In it, he talks about drinking and dressing, but it’s a fairly long quote, so I’m just gonna back out of its way:
“In this connection I feel I must deal with the problem of pink champagne. It is well known that many a romance has been wrecked for the lack of this romantic tipple.
I would say, here, that if it must be drunk in such a good cause, the costume is absolutely de rigueur. A sincere dressing-gown with red morocco slippers is as important as the guardsman’s bowler and brolly. (This last attire goes excellently with a large whiskey in the morning, particularly if you can manage to hide the brief-case that so cruelly accompanies it these days.) . . .
Perhaps, after all, it is best to stick to Pernod, if the sartorial consequences of imbibing interest you as much as they do me. This if only for the reason that however you start off drinking the stuff, you’re bound to end up more or less naked.”
— Paul Holt, “The Wine and the Waistcoat”
November 27, 2008
I have two quotes from John Betjeman’s jolly essay, “Unwise and Wise Drinking,” printed in The Complete Imbiber #1 (a collection any drinker should invest in, if they can find it. I pulled my copy from the basement shelves of a bookstore in York, England). These two seem ideal quotes to have at hand for the holidays. The first just in case you have a really vocal TT (teetotaler) at your holiday feast:
“I expect you know that story of the ancient and reverend head of an Oxford college, a man of few words and those remarkable. Someone had brought a guest to the high table who was a confirmed teetotaler. At the end of dinner he was offered a glass of port, and proclaimed in a loud voice ‘I would rather commit adultery than drink a glass of port.’ Then, that ancient and reverend head of the house broke the silence by saying ‘And who wouldn’t?’”
and the second to remind us not to forget the important “drink” part of the feast (though he doesn’t mention cocktails specifically, they should recognized as an “essential” part of any holiday meal along with the wine family):
“And there we are all ranged round the tables, how essential a part of the feast is the drink: sherry, the wines, and the port and brandy. What a beautiful procession they make, often so much better and more digestible than the food! How dull the feast would be without them. And how the tongues are loosed, the hearts warmed, the better qualities brought out . . .”
— John Betjeman, “Unwise and Wise Drinking”
November 19, 2008
The Four Fists is a story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, which generally retells the narrative (in a few key scenes) of one character’s (Samuel Meredith) life. The scenes, as you might guess from the title, all revolve around times when he was punched in the nose. And then afterwards learned something from said punching that made him a better person. Don’t think I’m advocating violence as a solution here (I’m a drinker, not a fighter), but the quote below seemed to go so well with my fall highball-ish Hour Glass below that it seemed apropos. There are lots of good swilling moments in Mr. Fitzgerald’s stories (those jazz agers and floppers loved the cocktails and bubbly, bless ‘em all), so expect more Cocktail Talk from him later.
“He played football in the autumn, drank highballs in the winter; and rowed in the spring. Samuel despised all those who were merely sportsmen without being gentlemen, or merely gentlemen without being sportsmen.”
— F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Four Fists”
October 15, 2008
Charlotte Brontë’s third published novel isn’t rampant with cocktailing (more focused on life in a boarding school in a bustling French town), but it is brilliantly fun to read for the precise and flourishing prose, and for the following quote, which I think delves perfectly into the aroma, and nature, of whiskey:
“A heated stove made the air of this room oppressive; and, to mend matters, it was scented with an odor rather strong than delicate: a perfume, indeed, altogether surprising and unexpected under the circumstances, being like the combination of smoke with some spirituous essence–a smell, in short, of whiskey.”
–Charlotte Brontë, Villette
August 26, 2008
Not the best pocket book ever, but still worth a read (and the cover is sweet, with the tag line “the girl stepped over the edge of the tub”), George Harmon Coxe’s Murder with Pictures is a “Kent Murdock Mystery.” Kent’s a photographer, who solves a bit of crime on the side. You could do that in the 1930s. Here are two quotes from the book, both of which are worth repeating.
“A hot bath, a cocktail, and a change of clothes–these made a difference.”
“She contemplated the dress a moment, then stepped over to the bedside table and picked up the cocktail shaker, a severe cylinder on chromium and black enamel. She shook it five or six times, poured dark red liquid into the single silver cocktail cup. Manhattan’s were her favorite. But she had to be careful.”
— George Harmon Coxe, Murder with Pictures
August 18, 2008
It’s gotten all sorts of cloudy and rainy here (and it’s Monday, besides), which leads me to thinking of down-on-their-luck boxers embroiled in trouble, murder, at least one femme fatales, some tough cops, some dangerous political types, and dark nights and dark whiskey. Much like the main character in pulp-a-teer Day Keene’s To Kiss or Kill.
“The switchboard operator said impatiently, ‘Yes? May I help you?’
Mandell counted the crumpled bills in his pants pocket. ‘Send up a boy with a pint of rye. Old Overholt.’
He cradled the phone and sat on the bed. Then he lay back on it, thinking that if his brief set-to with the hood was a sample of what he had left, he was washed up as a fighter. He was just another meatball.”
–Day Keene, To Kiss or Kill
August 8, 2008
Here’s a weekend quote from a book that was turned into a sorta revolutionary, fun, and touching movie (the book’s not bad either–though, and this is rare, I like the movie better. It’s sweeter somehow, and the Hoskins is Cockney choice, as usual. Can you imagine running into him randomly in a pub in small town Britain? I’d probably faint, then wake up and buy him as many rounds as possible). Seems like a great quote to have up early in this blog’s history.
“Dominick lowered his voice and became as coy as a debutante sidling up to a bowl of spiked punch.”
–Gary Wolf, Who Censored Roger Rabbit?
August 6, 2008
Beyond the stacks of cocktail, drink, entertaining, and cooking books, I tend to read a wide range of printed works, from pulpy paperbacks in pocket size to long-boxes of comics to more modern novelists to poetry. But maybe my favorite area to hang out in, literature-ily, is the classic English novelists, especially Dickens and Anthony Trollope. Trollope’s drawing room books aren’t only an example of stellar prose (this really should go without saying, like it goes without saying that an Old Fashioned should never have soda water), but also feature characters whose motivations, observations, and situations are incredibly relevant today (even if they aren’t burdened down by cellular phones, televisions, and autos). Also, as they play out very episodically, Trollope books are ideal to take on daily bus rides, and, as they transport you in a way, they’re also ideal to take on planes, or on trips. I could go on and on, but instead, let me type in my favorite Trollope quote having to do with drinking (though there are lots of others, as many of his characters–not as many as Dickens, but still a lot–enjoy their drinks and parties), a quote that I never get tired of:
“The gentleman in his cups is a gentleman always, and the man who tells his friend in his cups that he is in love does so because the fact has been very present to himself in his cooler and calmer moments.”
–Anthony Trollope, He Knew He Was Right
That’s good, late 1800’s stuff y’all.
