February 7, 2023
Thanks to the British Library Crime Classics collections (which I’ve Cocktail Talked from a few times), I’ve discovered a number of authors I didn’t know before, ones who were read more in the earlier parts of the last century, including Arthur Morrison. A mystery and crime writer (usually with stories featuring his detective Arthur Hewitt, said stories told by said detective’s neighbor, journalist Brett, in a Watson/Holmes-y way), as well as a more straight fiction writer and journalist and writer about Japanese art. I liked his stories read is those mystery anthologies, so picked up The Collected Arthur Morrison. I haven’t read everything in it, but have read I think all of the Hewitt stories, and they tend to be pretty swell, in the Holmes deductive reasoning vein, but a bit more of an everyman while doing it in a way. He was one of the few at the time (or anytime) to rival Holmes in popularity, too. Some stories in the collection are completely regrettable, but those are in the minority. Not a lot of Cocktail Talking in them, sadly, but there was one story, about a heaping helping of gold on a ship that foundered, which involved diving to check out the scene, and, via the diving, the introduction of a new drink to me.
“That’s the dress that Gullen usually has,” Merrick remarked. “He’s a very smart fellow; we usually send him first to make measurements and so on. An excellent man, but a bit too fond of the diver’s lotion.”
“What’s that?” asked Hewitt.
“Oh, you shall try some if you like, afterwards. It’s a bit too heavy for me; rum and gin mixed, I think.”
A red nightcap was placed on Martin Hewitt’s head, and after that a copper helmet, secured by a short turn in the segmental screw joint at the neck.
–Arthur Morrison, “The Nicobar Bullion Case”
January 20, 2023
This pretty amazing gin drink is sadly not one you see around these days – a crying shame, as it’s delish. Let’s work together to bring it back! It’s from the legendary Patrick Gavin Duffy’s Official Mixer’s Manual (1940 edition), one of the big and necessary books from the early-middle of last century. A tome all cocktail lovers should have, me thinks, full of drinks and drink-making history and wisdom (and Duffy’s genial crankiness). This one features a heavy dollop of gin as the base, and then smaller amounts of maraschino, sweet vermouth, and Cointreau. So, you’ll want a gin you’re really fond of: I’m using Monkey 47 Schwarzwald Dry Gin, whose smooth juniper, citrus, spice, pepper, botanicals, and berries balance is a treat. Add in the nutty maraschino, sweet and orange-y Cointreau, herbal vermouth, and a little lovely lemon oil and you end up with a cocktail fit for, well, a lord!
The Lord Suffolk
Cracked ice
2-1/2 ounces Monkey 47 Schwarzwald gin
1/2 ounce Luxardo maraschino
1/2 ounce Cocchi Torino sweet vermouth
1/2 ounce Cointreau
Lemon twist, for garnish
1. Fill a cocktail shaker halfway full with cracked ice. Add everything but the twist. Stir well.
2. Strain into a cocktail glass, and garnish with the twist. Give a toast to the past, and then the future.
Tags: Cocchi Torino sweet vermouth, cocktail, Cocktail Recipes, Cointreau, Friday Night Cocktail, Gin, lemon, Luxardo Maraschino, Monkey 47 Schwarzwald Dry Gin, The Lord Suffolk, vermouth, What I’m Drinking
Posted in: Cocktail Recipes, Gin, Liqueurs, Recipes, vermouth, What I'm Drinking
November 29, 2022
Our recent Graham Greene Cocktail Talking (don’t miss The Comedians Cocktail Talk and This Gun for Hire Cocktail Talk, plus more Graham Greene’s from the past) continues, this time with The Heart of the Matter, which I recently re-read, and in which they drink a lot of Pink Gins, and sweat a lot, too. It’s a classic in the more serious Greene vein, steeped in immaculate, elegant, prose, alongside delving into the interactions and motivations of the main character, including a deep look in his Catholic beliefs and how they cause in a way part of the action to unfurl. Not for the faint of reading heart, neccessarily. But for those who like gin!
“What about you, darling?” He turned quickly away from her and began to fix two more Pink Gins. There was a tacit understanding between them that ‘liquor helped;’ growing more miserable with every glass one hoped for the moment of relief.
“You don’t really want to know about me.”
“Of course I do, darling. What sort of a day have you had?”
“Ticki, why are you such a coward? Why don’t you tell me it’s all off?”
“All off?”
“You know what I mean – the passage. You’ve been talking and talking since you came in about the Esperanca. There’s a Portuguese ship in once a fortnight. You don’t talk that way every time. I’m not a child, Ticki. Why don’t you say straight out – you can’t go?”
He grinned miserably at his glass, twisting it round and round to let the Angostura cling along the curve.
–Graham Greene, The Heart of the Matter
November 25, 2022
It is, as you probably know being up on your dates and all that, here in the U.S. the day after Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving being one of my favorite holidays as it’s focused on eating delicious things (and for many like me drinking them too) with family and/or friends. The day after Thanksgiving is a sort-of holiday, too, I call it Gizmo Day. Gizmo being this drink, the ideal way to use up leftover cranberry sauce! A simple mix, exactly what’s needed after the over-eating (who doesn’t?) and such from Thanksgiving, today is the perfect day to shake this one up. And now you have back-to-back holidays, instead of just one.
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 up, Thanksgiving-style.
October 4, 2022
Sorry, after last week’s Kill and Tell Cocktail Talk (read that one for a little more information on the book by Howard Rigsby), I realized I had to have at least one more, while I could still type – before the Martini kicks in. It’s not actually as drinky a book as some from the era, and the PI star isn’t as hard-drinking as others (he turns down a number of drinks), but hey, it’s not like he isn’t gonna drink at all!
“What would you like to drink?” I asked. “I can make a fair Martini.”
She had begun to look worried again, but she seemed to shrug it off. She smiled. “A Martini sounds grand.”
I made it five to one, and when she had tasted it she rolled her eyes upward. “While I can still talk there’s something I’d like to tell you,” she said.
I came back with a bourbon and soda and sat down.
–Howard Rigsby, Kill and Tell
Tags: bourbon, bourbon and soda, Cocktail Talk, Gin, Kill and Tell, Martini, Part III, vermouth
Posted in: Cocktail Talk, Gin, vermouth, Whiskey
September 16, 2022
It’s the middle of September! Hard to believe my friends. Time, it flies by like a flock of Peregrine Falcons (meaning: fast)! Not only are we in the back half of 2022, but we are also nearing October, which for me means fall trips to Italy (I hope for you, too), and truffles, and pasta, and art, and well, you know. It also means Italian drinks, wines, limoncellos, grappas, Italian beers, and of course amari. It’s funny, in a time flying way, and in a “sometimes things do change for the better” way, how many more of the latter, the amari (and other digestif-y and aperitif-y Italian brothers and sisters, not the grappas, sadly), are available now in the US than when I first made this here drink, Good Luck in Pisticci, like 7 years ago. Amari explosion! And if you expand that time frame (short in the overall realm of time) to the first time I went to Italy when I had my first amaro (I believe it was Montenegro), like 25ish years ago, well, it’s a big bang style explosion! An herbal, bitter and bittersweet, and lovely explosion!
Without which, I couldn’t make this drink, itself herbally rich and flavorful, but also citrus-y, bubbly, and jolly, in a way! It leans heavily on a particular amaro, Amaro Lucano created in 1894 by cookie baker Pasquale Vena (an aside: amari and chocolate chip cookies are a pleasant pairing) using an herbs and spices. Eventually, it became the sipper of choice to ancient ruling family the House of Savoy, which is neat, and it’s swell to sip solo, but also swell here with a few WA ingredients, Kur gin (delicious – read more of me talking about it) and Scrappy’s Grapefruit bitters (if you aren’t aware of how awesome Scrappy’s bitters are, then you have a wonderful future finding out), and classic orange stalwart Grand Marnier, and soda, and mint. Good Luck indeed!
Good Luck In Pisticci
1-1/2 ounces Kur gin
3/4 ounce Amaro Lucano
1/2 ounce Grand Marnier
2 dashes Scrappy’s Grapefruit bitters
Ice cubes
4 ounces chilled club soda
Mint sprig
1. Add the gin, Lucano, Grand Marnier, and Scrappy’s to a mixing glass. Stir well.
2 Fill a highball or comparable glass three-quarters full with ice cubes. Pour the mix from step 1 into the glass over the top.
3. Top with soda water. Stir briefly. Garnish with the mint sprig.
Tags: amari, amaro, Amaro Lucano, bitters, club soda, cocktail, Cocktail Recipes, Friday Night Cocktail, Gin, Good Luck In Pisticci, Grand Marnier, Kur gin, Mint sprig, Scrappy’s Grapefruit bitters, What I’m Drinking
Posted in: bitters, Cocktail Recipes, Gin, Italy, Liqueurs, Recipes, What I'm Drinking
September 6, 2022
As a good reporter and editor (much like Rock Rockwell, the intrepid editor of The Record, and hero in this here mystery book from 1950), I’m going to start this Cocktail Talk by referring you to the reference point of the What Rhymes with Murder? Cocktail Talk Part I, where I dig into the idea of reporters/mystery heroes, and a little more about the book as a whole. Here, I wanna just dive into the Cocktail Talking, so the only background on the book I’m putting in this paragraph is the tagline from the back cover, cause it’s one the finest taglines ever: “When a lusty lothario sings his serenade, romance rhymes with death!” Oh, and in the below they talk about overly-bittered Old Fashioneds. Also, memorable. Read it!
A voice at my elbow said, “Cocktail, sir? Old-Fashioneds and dry Martinis.”
“Old-Fashioned,” I said, hardly noticing the neat figure in black and white who spoke.
“Okay, but there’s more bitters in them than whiskey.”
I started and looked around. From under a frilly cap, the face of Amy Race was peering at me impishly. “I’m sticking to straight whisky myself,” she said. “That’s the trend below stairs.”
In spite of myself, I burst out laughing.
–Jack Iams, What Rhymes with Murder?
Tags: bitters, Cocktail Talk, Dry Martini, Jack Iams, Martini, Old Fashioned, Part II, there’s more bitters in them than whiskey, What Rhymes with Murder?
Posted in: bitters, Cocktail Talk, Gin, vermouth, Whiskey
August 30, 2022
Recently was re-reading the 1950s Dell Mystery pocket-sized book What Rhymes with Murder?, by Jack Iams, and thinking: why don’t more books have mystery-solving-reporters anymore? Let me step back: Jack Iams was a novelist (mysteries and others), teacher, and maybe most of all: reporter and journalist, for Newsweek, London Daily Mail, New York Herald Tribune, and others. So, perhaps not a complete surprise that some of his mystery books features Rocky Rockwell (amazing), City Editor and writer for The Record, one of two dailies in the small city this yarn and others take place within. Not only a writer/editor, if you wondered, but also a man not afraid to mix-it-up, both with circulation war heavies and such and with the dames – mostly his fiancé here, but also a wee dalliance with a writer for the other paper in town. He’s not the only newspaper person/mystery solver in pulp book history, either, though we don’t see as many now (I hope that’s right. It feels right!), which is a shame. Of course, not as many newspaper folks in general, sadly. But I digress! To get back to the matter at hand, this book, where Rocky gets mixed up with the murder of a visiting overly-amorous British poet (the ‘overly-amorous’ may have been implied with ‘British poet’)! It’s quite a swell mid-century piece of mystery fiction, moves quick, has some feints and counter-feints, ends up with two murders, Rocky rescues a paperboy from a hoodlum, and of course spends some well-earned time drinking up in clubs and hotels and homes. So much so that I’m gonna have a couple What Rhymes with Murder? Cocktail Talks, starting with the below pink gin-ing. Or desire for sure.
Across the room, alone at a table, sat Ariel Banks’s secretary Clark-Watson. A waiter was trying to explain something, then the clipped, high-pitched British voice said distinctly, “Dash it, I am simple asking for a pink gin.”
“But he don’t know how to make it,” said the waiter.
“That is scarcely my fault,” said Clark-Watson.
Amy chuckled and said to me, “I think I’ll get into this act.” She got up and strolled to Clark-Watson’s table. I could hear her saying, “I’m Amy Race of the Eagle. Perhaps I could be of assistance?”
“Can you tell this chap how to make a pink gin?”
— Jack Iams, What Rhymes with Murder?
Thanks to the British Library Crime Classics collections (which I’ve Cocktail Talked from a few times), I’ve discovered a number of authors I didn’t know before, ones who were read more in the earlier parts of the last century, including Arthur Morrison. A mystery and crime writer (usually with stories featuring his detective Arthur Hewitt, said stories told by said detective’s neighbor, journalist Brett, in a Watson/Holmes-y way), as well as a more straight fiction writer and journalist and writer about Japanese art. I liked his stories read is those mystery anthologies, so picked up The Collected Arthur Morrison. I haven’t read everything in it, but have read I think all of the Hewitt stories, and they tend to be pretty swell, in the Holmes deductive reasoning vein, but a bit more of an everyman while doing it in a way. He was one of the few at the time (or anytime) to rival Holmes in popularity, too. Some stories in the collection are completely regrettable, but those are in the minority. Not a lot of Cocktail Talking in them, sadly, but there was one story, about a heaping helping of gold on a ship that foundered, which involved diving to check out the scene, and, via the diving, the introduction of a new drink to me.
