June 16, 2015
Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest is a pummeling of a book, where the fists, bullets, and drinks are flying (read more in the Red Harvest Part I Cocktail Talk post). Because of this, I sure couldn’t have just one post – so here’s the second (and I think they’ll be one more)! This one’s one of my favorite quotes of the moment, and maybe one of the really swell lesser-quoted quotes about being tipsy. Or at least part of it is – see what you think, and if you can guess what part!
“All right, Mr. Knowitall,” she said, “I’m going to play with you. You can think it’s not going to cost you anything, but I’ll get mine before we’re through. You think I won’t?” she challenged me, peering at me as if I were a block away.
This was no time to revive the money argument, so I said: “I hope you do.” I think I said it three or four times, quite earnestly.
“I will. Now listen to me. You’re drunk, and I’m drunk, and I’m just exactly drunk enough to tell you anything you want to know. That’s the kind of girl I am. If I like a person I’ll tell them anything they want to know. Just ask me. Go ahead, ask me.”
–Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest
June 9, 2015
I recently did some Cocktail Talk posts featuring the quotes from the Dashiell Hammett book, The Glass Key, a fine read of politicking, rough-housing, drinking, and plot twists. It’s one of my favs! I also recently re-read the Dashiell Hammett book Red Harvest, and while I don’t love it as well as The Glass Key, it’s still a fun read – a little more of a punch in the face then a tightly plotted yarn (though it does have its share of twists and turns), with a high, high body count, and a whole city boiling over with the rat-a-tat-tat of the tommy gun as The Continental Op (Hammett’s cowboy with no name, in a way) tries to clean up Poisonville (or at least that’s what the residents call it). As you might expect, there’s a fair amount of boozing that goes on, and that’s where we come in! Starting with the below:
Robert Albury, the young assistant cashier of the First National Bank, was sitting in the lobby when I returned to the Great Western Hotel. We went up to my room, had some ice-water brought, used its ice to put chill in Scotch, lemon juice, and grenadine, and then went down to the dining room.
–Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest
May 26, 2015
Okay, I’ve taken nearly a month since the Glass Key Part 1 post, and during that time haven’t been able to get this smashing Dashiell Hammett novel of politics and ka-pows out of my mind. So, that means – a second Cocktail Talk post on it. You are very lucky people (but not as lucky as when you actually read the book), cause it’s a swell, swell read, as the below demonstrates (in boozy fashion).
Lee Wilshire had returned to her table. She sat there with her cheeks between her fists, staring at the cloth.
Ned Beaumont sat down facing her. He said to the waiter: “Jimmy’s got a Manhattan that belongs to me. And I want some food. Eaten yet, Lee?”
“Yes,” she said without looking up. “I want a Silver Fizz.”
–Dashiell Hammett, The Glass Key
May 5, 2015
I feel sorta weird right now – I swear I’ve put up a Cocktail Talk post from Dashiell Hammett’s The Glass Key before. I swear! But I certainly can’t find evidence of such. Drinking does take its toll! But even if there is some rogue post, it doesn’t matter, cause I recently re-read the book, and found even more swell quotes. If you don’t know (I’m taking it for granted you at least know Hammett a bit, cause who doesn’t) The Glass Key, it’s one amazing little book, packed with politics, punches, and pulchritude. The inspiration (even if not called out directly) for the Coen Bros. movie Miller’s Crossing, it has swagger, smarts, and sass. The dialogue is crisp, the machinations are mapped minutely, and the drinks flow. As evidenced in the below.
A waiter came. Ned Beaumont said: “Rye.” Jack said: “Rickey.”
Jack opened a pack of cigarettes, took one out, and, staring at it, said: “It’s your game and I’m working for you, but this isn’t a hell of a good spot to go up against him it he’s got friends here.”
“Has he?”
Jack put the cigarette in a corner of his mouth so it moved batonwise with his words.
–Dashiell Hammet, The Glass Key
April 28, 2015
Not too long ago, I posted a few Cocktail Talks from the Day Keene story collection, The League of the Grateful Dead. Cause Day Keene is awesome (go see all the Day Keene Cocktail Talk posts to see what I’m talking about). And now, I’ve got my gin-stained hands on the second Day Keene pulps story collection, We Are the Dead, and it is also the tops (and, between us, also needed a good copy editor. But don’t get stuck on the small stuff). There are many worthy novella-length stories in the collection, but our quote today is from A Slight Mistake in Corpses.
“He’s in the chair,” McNeary said grimly. “We caught him, as the colored maid at his hotel informed me, in ‘fragrent delicto.’ The dead blond was in his bed, the boodle was on his dresser, and Little Boy Blue had a hangover that was a yard wide and all rye.”
–Day Keene, A Slight Mistake in Corpses
April 14, 2015
The lost James M. Cain novel – which was found, thankfully – is good enough that I couldn’t have just one Cocktail Talk from it (if you missed The Cocktail Waitress Part I, catch up). So, here’s another quote from the book to wet your whistle (and to get you to read the book, if you haven’t already. But you probably have. Cause you’re cool like that).
“Sergeant Young, can I thank you again, for suggesting I come here, for recommending me to Bianca, or vice versa, whichever is the right way to say it? I handed over the wine and cocktail list, though obviously he knew the Garden better than I did and probably already knew what he liked to have.
“I’m glad she had an opening for you, and that you took it.” He handed back the card. “You can ask Jake to make me up a smash.”
Jake mixed a whiskey sour and poured it into a highball glass with some muddled mint leaves at the bottom. Sergeant Young took a long sip and set it down, then looked me over from head to toe. This time I didn’t stiffen. A week can make a difference
— James M. Cain, The Cocktail Waitress
April 7, 2015
A lost novel by James M. Cain (James M. Cain!) came out a couple years ago, and I didn’t even realize it. Cause I am an idiot! But, that didn’t make me any less happy when I did find out, and when I found a copy I was ridiculously happy. Mr. Cain is of course one of the honest-and-true pulp and hardboiled masters, and so discovering The Cocktail Waitress, a lost novel of his, well, that’s treasure to a guy like me. And the book is fantastic, with many of the Cain hallmarks (sex, greed, stark, and characters that breathe), and with a fair amount of action in a bar called The Garden of Roses. In it, our main character learns a bit about what she’ll need to do besides delivering drinks.
“First set-up is for the old-fashioned. You know what an old- fashioned is?”
“You mean the orange slices and cherries?”
“…Yeah, them.” He gave me a long look, then went on: “And for Martinis?”
“I turn the olives out in a bowl and stick toothpicks in them.”
“For Gibsons—”
“Onions, no toothpicks.”
“O.K. Now, on Manhattans—”
“Cherries.”
“No toothpicks if they have stems on them. But sometimes the wrong kind is delivered, and them without stems take picks. On Margaritas—”
“Salt? In a dish? And a lemon, gashed on one end, to spin the glasses in?”
“Speaking of lemon—”
“Twists? How many?”
“Many as three lemons make. Cut them thick, put them in a bowl, and on top put plenty ice cubes, so they don’t go soft on me. I hate soft twists.” He looked at me like I was a dancing horse or some other marvel. “You sure you never…?”
I explained: “My mother used to give parties, and my father fixed the drinks. I was Papa’s little helper.”
— James M. Cain, The Cocktail Waitress
March 31, 2015
We are now onto the third Cocktail Talk post featuring drinky talk from a book by Henry Kane. Please, please, for the love of all that’s dear to you, go back and read Part I and Part II, because you’ll only kick yourself when you miss them. Though the below may be my favorite, just cause you don’t see Sidecars come up in literature that often – and you need to savor them when they do!
I pursed my lips. I said, ‘Two sidecars.’
We sipped and looked at each other and set them down.
‘Let’s pay and leave,’ Edith said. ‘Mine stinks. And you look like yours does, too. Sacrilege. I’m going home. Got work.’
I put her into a taxi.
‘Bye, Red. Be seeing you.’
I walked home and went straight to the kitchen and fused lemon and Cointreau and cognac and in the living room I lapsed into beautiful beatitude.
–Henry Kane, Martinis and Murder
