Everyday Drinking_ The Distilled Kingsley Amis - Kingsley Amis [58]
As I was saying, the world’s quality brandies are cognac and Armagnac from France. A Frenchman quite expects you to use a three-star cognac in mixed drinks, though he’d be shocked if he caught you drinking a higher grade any other way but neat.
A great proportion of total brandy sales in the UK goes into the medicine cupboard as a life-saver. It’s quite a powerful heart stimulant, a property which gives some people a restless night if they take too much of it. Anyway, no surprise that it features in a couple of morning-after recipes. There are various mixtures called a Corpse Reviver but this is the simplest—large tot brandy, fill up with sweet ginger ale, optional dash of Angostura bitters, best drunk without ice and fast. The other curative potion is supposed to alleviate the trots. I’ve never seen it written down or heard of a name for it, but it’s widely believed in. Just mix equal parts of brandy and ruby port and drink as it is. Folklore says if you take the two parts separately it doesn’t work.
To turn to pleasanter thoughts—the Alexander comes in all the cocktail books, but it isn’t really a cocktail in the sense that it’s good before a meal, being more of a meal in itself. Take one to four parts brandy according to taste, one part crème de cacao, which is a sweet chocolate liqueur, one part double cream plus ice, shake hard and strain. The sweetness and the cream slow down the intake of alcohol, so it may not be until after two or three that you realize, or she realizes, how strong they are. You’ll actually like the Alexander if you like gooey drinks, but if not, not. It was Anthony Blanche’s tipple in Brideshead Revisited.
There are dozens of proper cocktails based on brandy, of which the Sidecar is the most famous. Take two to eight parts brandy, one or two parts Cointreau, two parts lemon juice and ice, and shake if you feel like it, though a good stir should be enough. Named after the sidecar that used to carry the inventor of the drink to his favourite bar and, more important, home again. A sidecar is the ideal vehicle for a soak when he’s been soaking—he can forget about the driver and snore away in peace.
You’d expect to find the Champagne Cocktail under “champagne” rather than here, but there wasn’t room in my champagne article the other day, and brandy is involved. Saturate a lump of sugar in Angostura bitters and put it in a wineglass, add about a pub single of brandy, top up with chilled champagne. Everybody seems to think this is an overrated drink, but it keeps going all the same. If offered it at a private house, at a wedding reception, etc., sneak round behind the scenes and check that the empties really are champagne and not some questionable substitute. If in doubt, ask for a real drink.
You’ll soon be needing one anyway.
The publishers Mitchell Beazley are bringing out a very useful series of pocket guides to this and that. They really do fit in the pocket, aren’t bulky and have semi-stiff covers to keep them neat. Topics to date include photography, cheese, architecture and the stars and planets (Patrick Moore), not forgetting booze.
My eye fell on Michael Jackson’s Pocket Bar Book, which covers a great deal of ground reliably and entertainingly. There’s a section on travel and drink—what to go for in what sort of establishment the world over, from rum with pickled fish in a Caribbean cold-supper shop to ouzo, cheese and olives in a Greek kafenion. Next, valuable hints on serving drinks, tools of the trade and glasses. The A-to-Z of drinks lists and describes the different kinds, such as lager, Campari, Plymouth gin, mezcal, Grand Marnier, Sauternes, punch. Includes kvass, Russian near-beer made from rye bread, but not koumis, fermented liquor from mare’s milk used by Tartar nomads in Central Asia—no, actually I’ve never tried it.
The catalogue of cocktails is very complete and helpful, old stalwarts like the Manhattan, new horrors like the Pina Colada, though surprisingly no White Lady. Finally, a page on the hangover, which after all that you may feel is too