Everyday Drinking_ The Distilled Kingsley Amis - Kingsley Amis [60]
There remains the question whether these and other so-called warmers actually warm you. I don’t think they do. They make you feel warmer all right, but that isn’t the same thing. I would not recommend going out into the cold after partaking of them. To my mind they’re for after you come back in— after skiing it could be, though I wouldn’t know about that, thank heaven.
Booze manufacturers are a thrifty lot who hate throwing away any part of their material. Thus the ingenious brewer scoops off his surplus yeast and flogs it to the makers of extract spreads and tablets. Rather in the same way, some distillers of Scotch take the protein out of their wastes and convert it into animal food.
The vineyard proprietors must have rejoiced when, many years ago, it was discovered that you could make an alcoholic drink of sorts out of the residue of grape skins, stalks and pips left in the wine presses after the juice had been taken out for fermentation. In France, this debris is called marc, the “tread,” and the drink is familiarly known by the same name. Pronounced “mar.” (When I was a lad you were supposed to tack a guttural or choking noise on at the end in an attempt to reproduce the French “r,” but nowadays they seem to let you off that.)
Marc is a white/transparent spirit, a true brandy in being a product of grapes, though nobody would speak of it in the same breath as cognac or Armagnac. In fact it’s quite unlike any brandy made from wine. The books do say, however, that it’s “greatly esteemed by local connoisseurs.” After much varied experience I find this phrase about as reassuring as “First showing on British television” in a different context. And there are not a few who, on taking a first sip of marc, and being told it’s made from wine leavings, have grunted that it smacking well tastes like it, or words to that effect. To one sage its flavour is strawlike or earthy, to another leathery yet grapy; most of them call it fiery. It can seem a little on the raw side but to my mind it’s marvellous after a good dinner as a treat, a change, a jolt. You only need one.
Of all the versions they make, or used to make, in the different regions of France I’ve never seen more than three over here. Marc de Bourgogne is the best known. You can sometimes get hold of marc de Champagne. The rarest and, I think, the finest is marc d’Alsace, made from the famed Gewürztraminer grape, which is said to be scented, herb-like, spicy, etc.
Grappa is the Italian version of marc, though Italians mightn’t like me to put it like that. It’s got much more to it than the straight Italian brandies, which are perfectly all right but tend to be a bit on the sweet side. Not to take a glass of grappa after an Italian meal strikes me as the grossest folly. There are delicious brands made from the refuse of muscatel wine.
Spirits in the marc-grappa mode are produced in several other wine-growing countries, including Germany, Spain, Portugal and parts of the USA and South America. Some pisco brandy from Peru, lately fashionable here, is of this type. Inca brand, available in the UK, is strange and delicious on its own, splendid in a Pisco Sour with lemon juice, sugar and Angostura bitters.
Today we kick off with a spanking recipe of my own invention. Assemble in a wineglass a slug of Calvados apple brandy, a dash of Angostura bitters and a level teaspoon of castor sugar dissolved in the minimum of hot water, and stir vigorously. Add ice cubes and stir vigorously some more. Take out ice, top up with chilled top-quality cider, drop in an apple slice and serve.
Knowledgeable topers will have already seen that this is an apple-based version of the Champagne cocktail made from brandy and champagne. It’s also a lot cheaper—Calvados is a few bob dearer than a three-star cognac, but the classiest cider is a fraction of the cost of the commonest champagne. Though I say it as shouldn’t, the Normandy Cocktail—Normandy being the apple orchard of France—is a delicious concoction, deceptively mild in the mouth. But be careful how