"Science" for Tipplers: Dechlorinating Tap Water

November 30, 2013

When all is said, God undoubtedly made Scotch to be drunk on its own, but what does this mean in practice—ice, soda, water or not? Well, tastes differ, but with an ordinary brand, a standard-price brand, I'll take ice and soda; with an expensive "premium" blend probably water and no ice; with a malt plain water, about one to one.
But what water? Well, tap water if there's nothing else, and provided it isn't chlorinated. If it is, and there's still nothing else, try pouring some from one jug to another and back again a few times. The infusion of air seems to get rid of the chlorine.

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Amis, Kingsley. "Everyday Drinking." Bloomsbury, 2010-07-22. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.

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Scotch & Cloves?

November 30, 2013

One unusual, enjoyable and (I should guess) ancient mixture consists of Scotch and alcoholic cordial of cloves. I'd forgotten it, and had thought the cloves had stopped being made, as many old drinks have, until it popped up the other day on the Peter Dominic list. Proportions not critical. You could call the thing a Clove Hitch if you felt inclined.

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Everyday Drinking Kingsley Amis Category: Beverages

20th Century Anglo Bibulous Myopia

November 30, 2013

I think the nastiest drink I've ever drunk in my life was some stuff called mezcal in a Mexican market town. It's made, I find, from the same aloe-like plant that gives us tequila, of which mezcal is a kind of downmarket version, if you can imagine such a thing. When I bought my bottle at the grocer's it had a small packet tied to the neck. Inside was what looked like a shrimp in talcum powder. "What's that?" I asked my American friend. "That's the worm," he said, "the best part. You can try it without." I tried it without. My head filled with a taste of garage or repair shop—hot rubber and plastic, burnt oil and a whiff of hydrochloric-acid vapour from the charging engine. When I sold Mack the rest of the bottle he emptied in the pounded-up worm, recapped, shook, and poured himself a tumbler of greyish liquid with little pink shreds in it. Give me Tizer any day.
I haven't yet sampled Ruou Tiet De, a North Vietnamese mixture of rice alcohol and goat's blood, or Central Asian koumis, fermented from mare's and camel's milk. Sake, a sweetish rice beer[…]

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Everyday Drinking Kingsley Amis Category: Beverages

Trust No One. Not even in Brooklyn.

November 27, 2013

Warning: when your host offers you anything called any sort of punch or cup, try to avoid it unless you trust him and/or have had a peep at the bottles the stuff has come out of. Some chaps seem to think that any old muck is good enough if you ice it and throw some fruit into it.

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Everyday Drinking Kingsley Amis Category: Beverages

Calculated to put young ladies completely at their ease

November 27, 2013

If you have a bit of money to throw around, try what Cyril Ray calls his Swagger Sling. This is a bottle of champagne, a bottle of claret, a glass of brandy, a glass of Grand Marnier, lemon and sugar and nothing else. No ice, he says. Chill the ingredients beforehand. Calculated to put young ladies completely at their ease.

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Everyday Drinking Kingsley Amis Category: Beverages

Three Novels on the Liquidity of Man

Babbitt — Sinclair Lewis

Something Happened — Joseph Heller

Prisoner of Grace — Joyce Cary

Happiness is Mandatory

November 27, 2013

There's no getting away from it

…The company takes a strong view against psychotherapy for executives because it denotes unhappiness, and unhappiness is a disgraceful social disease for which there is no excuse or forgiveness. Cancer, pernicious anemia, and diabetes are just fine, and even people with multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease may continue to go far in the company until they are no longer allowed to go on at all. But unhappiness is fatal. If my daughter or son were to commit suicide, that would be overlooked, because children do things like that, and that's the way kids are. But if my wife were to jump to her death without a prior record of psychiatric disturbance, did it only because she was unhappy, my chances for further advancement would be over. I'd be ruined.)

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SOMETHING HAPPENED Joseph Heller Category: Fiction & Literature

Kingsley Amis' Lazy Singapore Sling

Sounds suspect, but I'll give it a shot.

November 25, 2013

The Singapore Sling is a famous old gin mix with many recipes, some of them elaborate. As served in the Long Bar of Raffles Hotel, Singapore, it has eleven ingredients. My corner-cutting, tasty, forceful version calls for two parts gin, one cherry brandy (Cherry Heering is the best) and two or three parts fresh fruit juice (orange will do very well).

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Everyday Drinking Kingsley Amis Category: Beverages

Tchaikovsky's 6th for Hangovers

November 25, 2013

The Hangover

Here, the trap is to set your sights too high. On the argument tentatively advanced against unduly great literature, give a wide berth to anyone like Mozart. Go for someone who is merely a towering genius. Tchaikovsky would be my best buy in this department, and his Sixth Symphony (the Pathétique) my individual selection. After various false consolations have been set aside, its last movement really does what the composer intended and, in an amazingly non-dreary way, evokes total despair: sonic M.H. if ever I heard it.

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Everyday Drinking Kingsley Amis Category: Beverages

Cognac Counterfeit Technique

Does this really happen?

November 24, 2013

Mean sod's Guide

…The more sophisticated, and troublesome, method, much used in restaurants, is to take a couple of handfuls of raisins, split them open, put them in a basin, pour some lousy brandy over them and leave for twenty-four hours. Strain and serve as, probably, a little-known cognac rather than Armagnac.

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Everyday Drinking Kingsley Amis Category: Beverages

Due Punishment for Gin & Tonic Drinkers

November 24, 2013

Mean sod's Guide

Cheat on later drinks as follows: in preparing a gin and tonic, for instance, put the tonic and ice and thick slice of lemon in first and pour on them a thimbleful of gin over the back of a spoon, so that it will linger near the surface and give a strong-tasting first sip, which is the one that counts. A friend of mine, whose mother-in-law gets a little excited after a couple of drinks, goes one better in preparing her third by pouring tonic on ice, wetting a fingertip with gin and passing it round the rim of the glass, but victims of this procedure must be selected with extreme care.

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Everyday Drinking Kingsley Amis Category: Beverages

Best Simple Syrup Instructions I've Encountered

November 24, 2013

The Store Cupboard

Down a stiff drink and keep another by you to see you through the ordeal. Put a pound of castor or cube sugar in a saucepan with half a pint of water and bring the dissolving mixture to the boil. Keep it there for five minutes. Let it cool and pour into an old (clean) spirits bottle. The Constance Spry Cookery Book recommends adding a teaspoon of liquid glucose to the sugar and water, as a guard against later crystallization.
Remember you are dealing with one of the stickiest substances known, so select with forethought the surface where you will do the pouring, and cover it with a month's old newspapers. For the same reason, bind some flannel or something round your bottle to absorb stray dribbles from its mouth—so see that its neck is long enough—or make a collar for it from one of those plastic sponges that harden when dry.

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Everyday Drinking Kingsley Amis Category: Beverages

Living the Dream

November 24, 2013

When you move to New Hampshire, the first thing you want to do is get your name on the road-killed moose list down at the PD. That and the spring crop of fiddleheads assures you'll never go hungry. But the police offer no free moonshine. You'll be on your own there.

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The Kings County Distillery Guide to Urban Moonshining David Haskell & Colin Spoelman Category: Beverages

Kindly Turn Off that Infernal Racket

November 23, 2013

Introduction

(I wonder very much what would be the effect on the trade of a publican who put up a notice at his door saying, "No Music Inside." Will someone try it?) Anyway, we pay the pipers; we ought to be able to call the absence of tunes.

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Amis, Kingsley. "Everyday Drinking." Bloomsbury, 2010-07-22. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.

Available in iBooks Store

Angular Manhattan

• 2 dashes Angostura
• dash St. George absinthe
• 3/4 oz Carpano sweet vermouth
• 3/4 oz Cynar
• 1 1/2 oz Rittenhouse rye

Stir, coupe, boozy cherry.

Preferred Manhattan

• 2 dashes Angostura
• 1 1/2 oz Carpano sweet vermouth
• 1 1/2 oz Rittenhouse rye

Stir, coupe, boozy cherry.

Tristan Willey’s Rumble Seat

Lillet and Cocchi? How cheeky...

November 23, 2013

Later that year, I left the distillery to work in cocktails, first at Amor y Amargo and later at Booker & Dax. Together with my friend Chris Elford, who also distilled at Kings County, I spent a long time creating a corn whiskey cocktail. Moonshine is not always the malleable ingredient you want it to be—it doesn't always play nice. But we finally bullied it into a recipe that feels worthy of our time as distillers. We call it a Rumble Seat.

RECIPE:
1 1/2 ounces (45 ml) Kings County Moonshine
½ ounce (15 ml) Lillet White
¼ ounce (7 ml) Cocchi Americano
6 dashes Luxardo Maraschino
8 drops Bittermens Mole Bitters

Stir and serve up in a coupe with no garnish.

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The Kings County Distillery Guide to Urban Moonshining David Haskell & Colin Spoelman Category: Beverages