Cocktail Talk: The Return of the Native
Here we are and the ol’ Spiked Punch blog has gone high-brow. Countryside high-brow, I suppose, as below we have the first Thomas Hardy Cocktail Talk ever! And Hardy, as we all know, was devoted to his particular countryside, which he called Wessex, perhaps more devoted to this one place than almost any other author was or is to a spot. Perhaps. But I ramble! I went through a heavy Hardy phase as one does in say my late 20s to mid-30s (somewhere in there), and while I never returned to him again and again in the way I do with Dickens, or Trollope, or Mosley, I did recently re-read The Return of the Native, and might delve back into another of his, too, soon. We shall see. But again, I ramble. There’s been enough said about Hardy that I don’t need to give some sort-of Return of the Native critique, but I will say that, outside of the Hardian language and narrative and landscape, the book also features a pub called The Quiet Woman Inn a little, and while not a book full of Cocktail Talking, the pub does set the scene for the below quote, which has the prettiest drink under the sun in it!
“That’s a drop of the right sort, I can see,” said Grandfer Cantle, with the air of a man too well-mannered to show any hurry to taste it.
“Yes,” said Wildeve, “’tis some old mead. I hope you will like it.”
“O ay!” replied the guests, in the hearty tones natural when the words demanded by politeness coincide with those of deepest feeling. “There isn’t a prettier drink under the sun.”
“I’ll take my oath there isn’t,” added Grandfer Cantle. “All that can be said against mead is that ’tis rather heady, and apt to lie about a man a good while. But tomorrow’s Sunday, thank God.”
“I feel’d for all the world like some bold soldier after I had had some once,” said Christian.
“You shall feel so again,” said Wildeve, with condescension. “Cups or glasses, gentlemen?”
“Well, if you don’t mind, we’ll have the beaker, and pass ‘en round; ’tis better than heling it out in dribbles.”
–Thomas Hardy, The Return of the Native
