May 2, 2023
Thought I’d have another, another Cocktail Talk, that is, from this book by A.A. Fair, aka, Erle Stanley Gardner. I just can’t resist a good Benedictine quote! If you missed the Beware the Curves Cocktail Talk Part I, well, don’t miss it any longer (and you might as well catch all the A.A. Fair Cocktail Talks while you’re at it).
“I’m a hell cat,” she said.
She got up to pour more liquor. She was wearing some kind of a filmy white thing. The bottle was getting empty. She had another bottle in the kitchen. She opened the kitchen door to go get the bottle.
Bright lights were on in the kitchen. The lights flooded through the doorway and silhouetted every curve of her figure against the white gossamer.
Halfway through the doorway, she thought of something, turned, and said, “Would you prefer brandy and Benedictine to crème de menthe, Donald?”
I took a little time debating the matter. “You’ve got both?” I asked.
“Yes.” She shifted her position slightly.
The light behind her did its stuff.
“Brandy and Benedictine,” I said. “But just one, Stella.”
–A.A. Fair, Beware the Curves
Tags: A.A. Fair, Benedictine, Bertha Cool, Beware the Curves, Beware the Curves Part II, Brandy, brandy and Benedictine, Cocktail Talk, Cool and Lam, Crème de menthe, Donald Lam, Erle Stanley Gardner
Posted in: Brandy, Cocktail Talk, Liqueurs
April 25, 2023
I’ve had a fair (hehe) number at A.A. Fair Cocktail Talks, that being a nom de plume of Erle Stanley Gardner. In those past posts, I go on about how I feel about the author vs. his other self (if that makes sense), and how I feel about various characters and books and all that stuff I know you are dying to go read about. So, do it! Then when back come read this quote from Beware the Curves, a Cool and Lam book (the two detectives that the A.A. Fair side of the personality writes about), and while not my favorite starring them, fun stuff. There’s a murder in the past reopened, lots of double-dealing and lying, ladies, a trial (I sorta wanted Perry Mason to show in the co-mingling of the universes, but alas, no), dirty politics, guns buried in the dirt, and cocktails.
We had a couple of cocktails. She went through the motions of counting calories when it came to ordering dinner, but she surrendered easily to the waiter, the menu, and my suggestions. She had a lobster cocktails, avocado-and-grapefruit salad, cream of tomato soup, filet mignon, a baked potato, and mince pie ala mode.
We went to her apartment, and she brought out a bottle of crème de menthe. She turned the lights down because her eyes hurt after a long day in the office.
–A.A. Fair, Beware the Curves
