Everyday Drinking_ The Distilled Kingsley Amis - Kingsley Amis [98]
8. (a) Biggleswade and Bury
(b) Portsmouth
(c) Henley-on-Thames
(d) Southwold
(e) London.
9. (a) In Germany, a strong type of beer, in France, a weak one.
(b) A type of Russian drink made from bread, beer of a sort.
(c) Japanese rice beer. So describable from the mode of manufacture, not the end result.
(d) Odd man out—German for “strawberry.”
(e) A type of Belgian beer made from wheat.
10. The Angel, the Royal Oak, the Swiss Cottage and the Elephant and Castle. The last name, by the way, is not a corruption of “Infanta of Castile.” The inn-sign obviously showed an elephant carrying a castle, which was the regular fifteenth-century term for a small wooden fighting-tower fitted to an elephant’s back.
VODKA
1. “Little water” or “waterlet,” from Polish/Russian “voda,” water. No doubt a Slavic jest. But note that Russians particularly are prone to the use of diminutives, and in practice will ask for “vodochka,” “waterletkins.”
2. It varies. Theoretically, vodka is a type of uncoloured grain whisky or pure spirit of grain, and it regularly is that in the US and officially in the USSR. In the UK, often a molasses spirit filtered through “activated” charcoal, and unofficially in the USSR anything available—potatoes, beetroots, nuts, sawdust, etc.
3. Eighth-century Poland, they say, but this was probably a distillation of wine, and so a form of brandy. For what would nowadays be called a vodka, eleventh- or twelfth-century Poland, more likely.
4. Smirnoff. The modern Western product derives from a member of the original family, who originated in the Polish city of Lvov, now incorporated in the USSR.
5. Zubrowka. Horrible muck according to me, though other Polish vodkas are first-rate.
6. They are designed for winter drinking in extreme northern latitudes, where anything weaker would freeze. (Does that mean you are supposed to drink them out of doors?)
7. (a) Vodka, beef consommé, lemon-juice, Worcester sauce, lightly iced, a warmer or reviver.
(b) The same, gently heated.
(c) As (a), but featuring tomato-juice half-and-half with the consommé.
(d) An invention of my own for a bonus, the Raging Bull— vodka, lemon-juice and Worcester sauce in a mug of Bovril.
8. By the colour. A White Russian Cocktail has vodka and Kahlua Mexican coffee liqueur mixed with cream floating on top, the Black Russian omits the cream. But either is to be avoided by sensitive persons.
9. In 1946 in a place called the Cock ’n Bull (a suitable name, you may feel) in Los Angeles a man with a lot of unsold vodka met a man with a lot of unsold ginger beer. A third man, brought in later, had a lot of unsold copper mugs. The success of their joint venture was the beginning of the success of vodka, first in the US, later the UK and elsewhere.
10. Peter the Great, in 1716. He took a close personal interest in these matters and invented an improved still.
APERITIFS AND SUCH
1. (a) A pre-prandial drink supposed by convention to stimulate the appetite, such as white wine, dry sherry and most of the drinks in this quiz.
(b) A branded drink, also called a wine aperitif, in the vermouth style, such as Dubonnet and Punt e Mes.
2. Inferior white wine, a little grape spirit or sugar syrup, artificial colouring (red, rosé and sweet white vermouths).
3. Our word “vermouth” comes from the French word “vermout” which is a frenchifying of the German word “wermut”which is cousin to the medieval English word “wermod” which got changed to “wormwood” because the herb was formerly used in medicine to get rid of intestinal worms, or quite possibly “wermod” got changed to “wormwood” because it sounded better and they used it for worming merely because it was called that. So yes, but distantly.
4. Once a valid distinction, showing healthy disrespect for the literal fact that the famous Martini Rossi dry vermouth was made in Italy. Now, pedantry on one side and ignorance on the other have rendered it unsafe. False, then.
5. (a) A classy white vermouth from the French Alps.
(b) The same, coloured pink and flavoured with wild