April 15, 2014
Once, long ago, in a galaxy far far away (or, in my office barroom), I surfaced a Cocktail Talk quote from the book Lucky at Cards, by master writer Lawrence Block. If you missed, go read it and all the Lawrence Block quotes now, and catch up on what I think and get the full view. Anywho, now that you’re back, I can say that I missed another quote from that book that is perfect for repeating, and which mentions a couple classic Scotches not so in evidence anymore.
The bartender glanced our way. I asked for Cutty Sark on the rocks for both of us. He didn’t have any. I tried him on Vat 69 and Peter Dawson and he didn’t have those fellows either. We settled on Black and White. He brought it over and Joyce and I touched glasses and drank. Most of her Scotch disappeared on the first swallow. She shivered a little, then let out a sigh.
–Lawrence Block, Lucky at Cards
April 1, 2014
I’ve had a few Cocktail Talk quotes from Lawrence Block books before – I tend to like the older ones, some of which have awesomely been reprinted by the awesome Hard Case Crime folks. The Girl with the Long Green Heart falls firmly into the latter category, as it was originally published in 1955, then reprinted in 2005, and as it’s full of cons, dames (one real serious dame, really), back-dealings, and drinks. No foolin’, just check out the below quotes:
The maître d’ beamed his way over to us, and Evvie said something about Mr. Gunderman’s table, and we were passed along to a captain and bowed through a cocktail lounge and a large dining room into something called the Terrace Room. The tables were set far apart, the lighting dim and intimate. We ordered martinis. “You might as well order big,” she told me. “He’ll be unhappy if I don’t give you the full treatment. This is quite a place, isn’t it? You don’t expect it in Olean. But they have people who come from miles to eat here.” The martinis were cold and dry and crisp. We had a second round, then ordered dinner. She touted the chateaubriand for two and I rode along with it.
—The Girl with the Long Green Heart, Lawrence Block
February 18, 2014
There are a number of things we miss in the modern age: Myrna Loy, zoot suits, un-ironic swing bands, speakeasies that aren’t just trying to be trendy, and more. We also miss the chance to have “bootlegger” on our resumes. Ah well, at least the unmissable Compleat Imbiber # 2, itself a bit old (from 1958) lets us relive the bootlegging days in an essay it contains. An essay from which I present to you the below quote.
The first violinist, an expert chemist, skillfully diluted the contents of gin, rum, Scotch whisky, Bénédictine, and Cognac bottles which he bought at the crew’s fifty per cent reduction from the second-class barman. (In those days of Honesty, it was ‘second’ and not ‘cabin’ class.)
—Joseph Wechsberg, Confessions of a Bootlegger
Tags: Benedictine, Cocktail Talk, Cognac, Complete Imbiber, Confessions of a Bootlegger, Gin, Rum, Scotch whisky, The Compleat Imbiber
Posted in: Cocktail Talk, Gin, Rum
February 11, 2014
I’ve had a few fair cocktail talk posts from Mr. Raymond Chandler, one of the few true masters of American detective and hard-boiled stories. And I’m guessing you know him already, because he’s pretty knowable, and, well, I think a lot of you. So, I won’t stand here gabbing, and instead just go into this amazing gin quote from The Lady in the Lake (which the New York Times no less called “one of his best”). I’ve felt a bit the way Mr. Marlowe feels below (and yes, I’m calling a fictional character “Mr. Marlowe.” But I think he deserves that, real or not).
I smelled of gin. No 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 smelled like dead toads.
–Raymond Chandler, The Lady in the Lake
January 21, 2014
Here’s a wee cocktail-spoons-worth of wisdom from the hopefully not completely forgotten American pocket-pulps-and-mysteries writer Harold Q. Masur (sometimes known as Hal). I tend to agree more with the latter sentiment in his first sentence below, though I’m not necessarily opposed to a good morning drink, unless I have a long afternoon meeting (hey, no need to nap in a meeting – I like to nap on the couch). Oh, this book also has one of the finest titles I’ve ever seen. And a great cover, too. Heck, pick it up, have a Scotch, and start reading.
Generally, I don’t like to consume liquor before lunch, but drinking with a man is a good recipe for getting on his right side. Muir was in the mood to talk and I ordered double Scotches to help loosen his tongue. The time of day meant nothing to him.
— Harold Q. Masur, So Rich, So Lovely, and So Dead, 1952
December 17, 2013
My wishy-washy-ness with Erle Stanley Gardner, and his version of Perry Mason, as well as my love of Perry Mason-as-played-by-Raymond-Burr, have been detailed on this blog in the past. So, I won’t weigh into them here (no need for me to get haunted anyway). But I still can’t stay away from his books when I find them in their pocket-sized printings, cause the covers tend to be so darn swell. And the insides certainly aren’t bad, and usually contain nuggets of joy like the below.
He went to the room, pulled the curtains, ordered four bottles of ginger ale, with plenty of ice, and got a quart of whiskey from the bell boy. Then he sat in the overstuffed chair, with his feet on the bed, and smoked.
— The Case of the Velvet Claws, Erle Stanley Gardner
December 10, 2013
Interestingly, much like Rex Stout (who I just Cocktail Talked below), I haven’t read a lot of Carter Dickson, even though his mysteries fall into some areas I like inhabiting. Example A: his Sir Henry Merrivale mysteries, of which The Punch and Judy Murders is one. They’re full of twists, take place in Jolly Old England, and have a main mystery-solver who is quirky and overweight. I’m for all of those things! But I still haven’t read much of Mr. Dickson. But this book was fairly rapid, had a good ending, and some memorable moments. Perhaps none as much as when one of the characters shows up with a tray of delicious drinks.
Charters handed round some admirable gin fizzes. A little of his old sharpness, his old doggedness, had come back when he had begun to outline his facts. He sat down on the veranda rail, his arms folded and his hands cradled under bony elbows.
— Carter Dickson, The Punch and Judy Murders
December 3, 2013
I haven’t read a whole lot of Rex Stout books, which is a bit weird, as his famous detective Nero Wolfe and the era he wrote in both hit me fairly square in my detective-y wheelhouse (not to mention that I love the covers, as I tend to, of books from that age). But hey, these things happen. However, when I came across a copy of his book entitled The Case of the Red Box, in a pocket-sized copy and with a cover that I couldn’t resist, well, I couldn’t resist. And it was a good read, for sure, with multiple murders, a great twist-y-ness, and a lot of beer. Perhaps the strangest thing about Nero Wolfe isn’t that he never leaves his house (or rarely), or that he takes hours every day to deal with his orchids, or that he only eats at home, etc. But that he drinks a ton of beer while interviewing suspects. Awesome! However, the below quote is even better, so I skipped the beer . . . this time.
You do shorthand in that book? Good: put this down. McNair was an inveterate eater of snails, and he preferred calvados to cognac. His wife died in childbirth because he was insisting on being an artist and was too poor and incompetent to provide proper care for her.
–Rex Stout, The Case of the Red Box
