Happy Pynchon in Public Private Day all! Did you declaim a paragraph of Gravity’s Rainbow from your rooftop? Put a copy of V in the window? Change your zoom background to an Against the Day airship? I hope everyone’s homes or other places of social isolation are well stocked with Pynchon tomes.

We venture here as so often to a the warm social conviviality of a public bar, establishments the likes of which now fade towards legend. Today, it’s the house bar at the Hotel Borealis, where the Vormancce Expedition members have checked in:

Inexpensive cigar smoke thickened the air, and the fifteen-cent bottles of imported Danish aquavit ran out, to be replaced by a locally distilled product stored in somewhat larger earthenware crocks. Out in the dark, the ancient ice went creaking, as if trying to express some argument of its own.

Against the Day, p. 132.

I have imported myself a bottle of Danish Aalborg Taffel Akvavit for this occasion. The stuff is a good way from running out yet. My chances of getting any of that local northern-arctic replacement product to compare here may be slim.

Far from the arctic, we’re taking our akvavit here two ways. Straight from the freezer, sipped then shot, it’s a bracing minty woodsy clear spirit. Evocative of jumping in some snow in one’s jocks. Interesting… not the easiest. To make a bit more of a dent, we’ve mixed up some cocktails too, loosely based on this recipe—akvavit, aperol, and lime juice. They’re nice fruity tart parcels with the akvavit bringing a prominent distinctive spice. To me, the akvavit spice was somewhere between aniseed and mint. But my learnèd friend/girlfriend’s housemate immediately picked it as carraway, which apparently is exactly right.

Happy birthday to Mr Pynchon! And happy Pynchon in Public Day everybody! I hope you are all having good pandemics.