As mentioned in a Cocktail Talk just a few weeks ago, I was recently in the UK (which is always jolly) and while there of course I had to try out a few local gins, it being the country I associate perhaps most strongly with gin (though I love my local gins, tons and always, but historically, you know). And I had some good ones, indeed, with one fav being Whitstable Harbour gin (which features Sea Buckthorn and Samphire, and which has a sibling featuring Kentish Cherries and Hibiscus – that one I liked so much I brought a bottle home). I had enough gin, that I was reminded of the below quote from Raymond Carver, who liked gin enough to have his detective swimming in it, so to speak.
I smelled of gin. Not 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 was sipping on a Martini with orange bitters added (a classic style of martini-ing) the other night, and while sipping was wracking my brain because I knew I’d read a quote in a classic pulpy book where a couple characters did just that, and it took for until the second cocktail to remember that it was Red Harvest! By legendary Dashiell Hammett! And the Continental Op (one of Hammett’s mainstay detectives) was one of the characters doing said sipping! It’s a grand book, one that any lover of last-century detective-etc. fiction should read, probably while drinking one of these. And while I’ve had the below quote on the Spiked Punch before, well, after the above moments, I decided it should be on here again.
When I came back she was mixing gin, vermouth and orange bitters in a quart shaker, not leaving a lot of space for them to move around in.
“Did you see anything?” she asked.
I sneered at her in a friendly way. We carried the cocktails into the dining room and played bottoms-up while the meal cooked. The drinks cheered her a lot. By the time we sat down to the food she had almost forgotten her fright. She wasn’t a very good cook, but we ate as if she were.
We put a couple of gin-gingerales in on top of the dinner.
Before jumping to the below Cocktail Talk quote, be sure to peep your peepers on the Skuldoggery Part I Cocktail Talk, to learn more about the mostly satiric, jolly, book itself, and also the author, Fletcher Flora (for that matter, and to see some more serious stuff from the normally noir-ish writer, check out all the past Fletcher Flora Cocktail Talks). Then come back for more from Uncle Homer in the below quote, where he’s dealing with his “grief” Martini-style.
“As his only surviving son,” Uncle Hester said, “I am in no position to deny it. What I am in a position to do, however, is to offer everyone a nice Martini. Father, as you know, was drier than Woodrow Wilson, but I took the opportunity, immediately after his sad departure, to lay in a small stock of gin and vermouth. Just to see me through the difficult days of final arrangements, you understand. It’s in the kitchen and so I’ll just go and mix up a pitcher.”
Poor Harriet, she was so sad, as she didn’t have a partner to sip bubbly cocktails with on Valentine’s Day (it is, by the way, Valentine’s Day today, if you’d forgotten), and was thinking she’d spend the whole day alone, staring out the window, sighing as sad music played in the background. But then she came up with this very drink, with a gin base (London-dry style here I think), and lover’s favorite, the pretty Parfait Amour (which, if you don’t know, is florally with citrus and spice cuddles), a bit of fresh orange juice (brilliant Harriet knows fresh is best), a dash of Peychaud’s bitters, some bubbles in the form of prosecco, and a tiny bit of simple syrup (she wavered a bit here – you might too, and dropping the simple is okay). Once she whipped up this drink, she had offers for days from people wanting to be her valentine. But then she realized spending a day alone and not buying into the corporate holiday is actually quite lovely, and she made herself one of these and enjoyed it immensely.
We’ve had a fair amount of Fletcher Flora Cocktail Talks, he being one of the pulp mag pulpsters I enjoy, and also being one who lived in Kansas, the state I grew up in (though he lived in Leavenworth, which is sorta fitting for someone who wrote a lot about crime), so, you know, connections. Like many who wrote for the mags and pocket-sized books, Mr. Flora’s oeuvre (so to speak) covers a fairly wide spectrum, though I tend to think of him of a slight tad more literary-minded than some, a bit off the beaten track in some of his subjects and narrators and such. But normally, those books of his I’ve read, slot nicely into a wider noir-crime area. Until Skuldoggery! While there may be light crimes committed (against good taste if nothing else), it’s way more a kind of comedic farce, with nearly all of the characters being, to be kind, idiots. There is a death of a patriarch, from natural causes, a rich one naturally. But one who leaves all his money to the care of his dog. A sentiment I can get on board with! But one which his descendants and relatives, a rum lot, aren’t as happy about. Which leads to Cocktail Talk moments, especially from Uncle Homer, who liked his gin even before the death of his father, and who, below, dreams a dream I’ve dreamt before.
Of all the mourners, though, the most impeccably impressive by far was Hester. Throughout the brief ceremony, her eyes were lifted to a cotton cloud drifting slowly across a pale blue sky as if Grandfather were riding it bareback into heaven and her face was so serene and lovely that Uncle Homer, observing it, felt a faint twinge in his leathery heart and was diverted for a few seconds from his dream of a five-to-one Martini.
It is almost silly to have an intro to A Study in Scarlet Cocktail Talk – I mean, is it the most famous detective story of all? Mayyyyybe not, and maybe not even the most famous Sherlock Holmes story (Baskerville, I suppose), but it is the first appearance of the most famous detective ever, and therefore has had not only bunches upon bunches written on it, but numerous versions on screen (and maybe stage?) and take offs and all. But! It is a bit weird and worth mention that even though I love Sherlock (though I wouldn’t call myself a Sherlockian or expert Holmesian or such), I have never had a Cocktail Talk from an ACD (Arthur Conan Doyle, natch) book on the Spiked Punch before – or that I can remember! There are lots of posts. But I was re-reading A Study in Scarlet and a few other Sherlock yarns, and came across the below quote, and figured it was about time the world’s only consulting detective made a showing here – or, at least, a quote from a story featuring him made a showing.
I’ll tell it ye from the beginning,’ he said. ‘My time is from ten at night to six in the morning. At eleven there was a fight at the White Hart; but bar that all was quiet enough on the beat. At one o’clock it began to rain, and I met Harry Murcher – him who has the Holland Grove beat – and we stood together at the corner of Henrietta Street a-talkin’s Presently – maybe about two or a little after – I thought I would take a look round and see that all was right down the Brixton Road. It was precious dirty and lonely. Not a soul did I meet all the way down, though a cab or two went past me. I was a-strollin’ down, thinkin’ between ourselves how uncommon handy a four of gin hot would be, when suddenly the glint of a light caught my eye in the window of that same house. Now, I knew that them two houses in Lauriston Gardens was empty on account of him that owns them who won’t have the drains seed to, though the very last tenant what lived in one of them died o’ typhoid fever. I was knocked all in a heap, therefore, at seeing a light in the window, and I suspected as something was wrong. When I got to the door-‘
Ah, here we are, 2025. If you can believe it – a new year, and one that would have seemed impossibly futuristic to a young me. Of course, the things that appeared top of the importance list to young me (I am old, I was young, you get it) on a January 3rd at say my tenth year, well, I’d have a hard time remembering them now, outside of whispers, at best. Not to say my memory is horrible, but, you know, time passes, specifics slip. For some reason, the early days of a new year, when so many are making resolutions and looking forward, always has me looking into the past, too. And when doing such, one needs the proper cocktail accompaniment – like this very drink, An Elusive Memory, which is named appropriately, and tastes swell, too. It combines deliciously-proper London-style gin Boodles (a firm favorite of mine for making cocktails and cause the name itself is fun to say) with a few friends that at first may not seem to go together: the exquisite Meletti anisette, the legendary Lillet, and Peychaud’s intriguing Whiskey Barrel Aged bitters. Really, we’re globe-trotting here, and the mixture comes together as smoothly as a flight without turbulence. All these flavors that may appear to be clashing are actually cozy, with various notes surfacing as you sip – in a way, to bring it all together, like memories surfacing as you troll the ol’ brain pan.
Hey, it’s the day after Thanksgiving! Hope that you had a filling day (those reading who celebrate, that is), and have found some things to be thankful for (this sentiment goes to all, celebrating or not). As for me, I’m thankful that I have some leftover homemade cranberry sauce, so that I can whip up a few Gizmos, the world’s finest day-after-Thanksgiving drink. It’s mingling of delicious gin – I go London style – with leftover cranberry sauce, and a smidge of simple syrup (which, if your cranberry sauce is sweetish already, you can skip. Mine’s fairly tangy as a rule, so I sometimes like that extra sweetness here). Thanks to you for having one, and double thanks to anyone making me one of these holiday delights.
The Gizmo
Ice cubes
2-1/2 ounces gin
1 ounce homemade cranberry sauce
1/2 ounce simple syrup (optional)
1. Fill a cocktail shaker halfway full with ice cubes. Add the gin and cranberry sauce, and syrup if using. Shake exceptionally well.
2. Strain into a cocktail glass. Drink, thankfully as you can.
