We’ve just about hit 50 Empty Bottles here at Tom Pynchon’s Liquor Cabinet, but this post marks our first occasion revisiting a passage to pull out a second drink. November last year, Against the Day led me to some apricot brandy abandoned in a safe-house cupboard. (I remarked at the time that it was a bit rough, and I can now confirm that it has been pretty much abandoned in my cupboard too). That brandy wasn’t the only booze left behind there though. Here’s the passage again (p. 718):
By the unwritten rules of these transitory dwellings, the cupboards yielded a sketchy culinary history of those who had passed through—bottles of Szekszárdi Vörös, Gewürtztraminer and apricot brandy, chocolates, coffee, biscuits, tinned sausages, wine, boxes of dried noodles of various shapes and sizes, a white cloth bag of tarhonya from the previous century.
As I remarked in the apricot brandy post, most of that stuff is pretty (and, in context, suspiciously) Hungarian. Gewurtztraminer, though, is mostly French. It’s mainly associated with the Alsace region near Germany (which explains that name). The Hungarians might not be totally off the hook however: Wikipedia does say some of these grapes grow there too, known locally as Tramini. Complicating that further is Pynchon’s use of the German spelling with the umlaut, which the French omit… Anyway, I’ve gone with an Alsace version. 
Gewurtztraminer is supposedly characterised by a “flamboyant bouquet of lychees” and maybe I’m just suggestive but I’m finding that a pretty convincing description not just of the aroma, but also the taste and even the mouthfeel. It’s reasonably sweet, and that residual sugar, combined with a lack of acidity, gives it a distinctively lychee-esque full fleshy texture. This particular one was Dopff au Moulin 2013.
Were I abandoning a safe-house, I might try not to leave this drop behind. It’s not particularly fancy, but pleasant and interesting enough that one shouldn’t have to search too hard for an occasion to polish it off. Plus internet wine people advise that Gewurtztraminer is suitable for ageing “only a very few years” if at all, so you couldn’t expect to go back and find it later in much of a condition…
Pynchon’s characters lean towards the grape when it comes to DIY-fermentation. Homemade wine of various kinds shows up in V., Lot 49, Slow Learner, Vineland, Mason & Dixon, and Against the Day. But a little beer does get made too.
The only other homebrew in Pynchon’s books is way back in V., where a Willem van Wijk “waved a bottle of homemade beer” at Kurt Mondaugen, future Gravity’s Rainbow cast-member. Van Wijk has the right idea—in my experience, homebrew is often better for gesticulating with than drinking. For about the last year, Drunk Pynchonette and I have been fumbling out way towards brewing something halfway palatable. Results have been mixed. We’ve attempted four IPAs, three stouts, a brown ale, and a pale ale, with recipes derived variously from 
Many bottles later, the waiters switch to sweet Taittinger, among other cheaper options, corks growing “straighter, less mushroomy” once everyone’s too far gone to care. I’m in no hurry to move on. It’s mid afternoon here now, and I’ve been idly sipping on Veuve Clicquot since sometime this morning. (Just one beer mug’s worth–I’m not knocking them back like the patrons of the Casino Hermann Goering). It’s fresh and zippy and very enjoyable. Just like the 
The particular gin is Tanqueray No. 10, pulled from the same top-shelf p. 303 Bleeding Edge bar (“elaborately carved in a number of neo-Egyptian motifs”) that brought you 
8 May is universally recognised and celebrated as Pynchon in Public day. Parades fill the streets from Venice Beach to Vheissu; confetti pours from airships over all the world’s great capitals. In celebration of this grand holiday, I gathered some compadres to join Oedipa Maas and me for a whisky sour.
Boilermaker House
Happy Pynchon in Public day all, and happy birthday Mr Pynchon! Try and squeeze out another book before the big eight zero hey?
Around page 82 of Against the Day, we learn a little backstory on Viekko, Webb Traverse’s potato-spirit bootlegging buddy. He and some comrades at one point had been rounded up for miners union activities and dumped in the southern San Juans deep in the middle of the night. They half expect to be executed, but are just left to walk bootless, warned to stay out of Colorado. Page 83:
My cactus beer is Otra Vez, a new addition to Sierra Nevada’s core range. It’s a gose with grapefruit and prickly pear cactus fruits. They seem to intend it as a hot-weather smasher, except with character. Gose’s have a bit of salt in the brew, so it’s practically exercise electrolite drink.
The current season of the podcast is covering the first part of Gravity’s Rainbow. In celebration, here’s a treat from one of that section’s most beloved scenes: Mrs Quoad’s gin marshmallow from the Disgusting English Candy Drill. I’ve been looking forward to this.
Slothrop one day around page 114 runs into Darlene, “an adorable tomato in a nurse uniform,” whose name he can sort of remember. They head back to her flat, where they find her elderly landlord/housemate Mrs Quoad sitting in the “grainy shadows” among “grease-hazy jars of herbs, candies, spices” listening to 
Is a gin marshmallow really such an abomination? It has to be the most palatable item in Mrs Quoad’s catalogue of sugary horrors. I’m eating one as I type this now, and I can attest to their being a bit weird. But not entirely undelicious. They’re pleasingly squishy and sweet, pervaded by a medicinal gin haze that would definitely bewilder anyone expecting a regular marshmallow. But if you know what you’re getting into, it kind of works.
