When I reread Inherent Vice a month or so ago, the first pages had me worried. It wasn’t the writing–I slipped into the Lebowski haze more happily and with even more laughter than on my first reading. But there weren’t any drinks. I started this project after reading Bleeding Edge, finding lots of alcohol, and vaguely remembering lots of it in Pynchon’s other books too. But now it looked like IV was going to let me down. Was there just to much dope to smoke and acid to trip for anyone to pause for a Mojito?

But pages 59/60 allayed my fears in style with a “gigantic pitcherful of margaritas.” Interestingly, Doc’s in “flatlander” (or non-hippy) disguise at the time (maybe that’s how the alcohol gets a foot in), visiting Sloane Wolfmann and her helpful maid, Luz. Sloane directs Luz to get them drinks:

“The midday refrescos, now if you wouldn’t mind, Luz. I do hope, Mr. Sportello, that margaritas will be satisfactory–though given your film preferences, perhaps some sort of beer and whiskey arrangement would be more appropriate?”

“Thank you, Mrs. Wolfmann, tequila’s just fine–and what a welcome relief not to be offered any ‘pot’! I’ll never understand what these hippies see in the stuff! Do you mind if I smoke a normal cigarette, by the way?

Doc does his bit of PI snooping, then Luz returns with the gigantic pitcherful “and some chilled glasses of an exotic shape whose only purpose was to make it impossible for the servants to wash them without the help of some high-ticket custom dishmop.” When Sloane’s “spiritual coach” Riggs Warbling walks in, he starts sipping from the jug “without going through the exercise of pouring anything into a glass.”

Once the drinking gets started, it keeps on steadily for the rest of the book. A bit later on, when Doc hooks up with Luz, she brings “a bottle of Cuervo,” (p.142). So I thought I’d combine the two here, and use the bottle of Cuervo to make the gigantic pitcherful of margaritas. You might not think that jug pictured above quite qualifies as gigantic, but I did refill it once, for a pretty gigantic total volume of margarita. And they were great margaritas! Definitely my most successful cocktail attempt (beating the Tequila Sunrise and the Tom Collins). The proportions were from this recipe, though I upgraded from Triple Sec to Cointreau. Some of my test subjects/drinking companions seemed to think it was too strong, but it tasted bloody good to me. And anyway, how am I supposed to cope with the Inherent Vice movie’s too-distant February 5th Australian release date without sufficiently potent margaritas?