Shadow Ticket is with us! I hope you’ve had a chance to enjoy some time in the company of Hicks McTaggart, April Randazzo, Zoltán von Kiss, Glow Tripworth de Vasta, and the rest of our cast of characters Milwaukeean, Hungarian, and otherwise. Isn’t it a delight being back amongst all those beautiful Pynchonian names? Between that and the songs, the great simple pleasures (mindless pleasures?) of the oeuvre ring out as clear and true as ever. And of course that’s only the beginning! I remain in a happy half-unbelieving daze that our author has surfaced from under Lake Michigan and allowed this book to grace the shores of our reality.

For now, let’s stick to those simple pleasures. Here at Tom Pynchon’s Liquor Cabinet, we’ve never exactly focused on the heavy stuff—more like the strong stuff. On that front, you will be delighted to hear that Shadow Ticket keeps the booze coming, Prohibition be damned. The List is updated, and there’s plenty there for us to get our jiggers stuck into. As I happened to have the ingredients on hand, we’re kicking things off with a classic.

The Sidecar came into being in London and/or Paris around the end of the first world war, with DNA tracing back to a drink called the Brandy Crusta from 19th century New Orleans. It’s composed of brandy, Cointreau, and lemon juice. From the 1930s, published recipes began tricking out the glass with a sugar rim. The proportions started out as equal parts, but according to this Punch article they’re pretty debatable. For my Sidecar, I’ve gone with 3 parts Hennessy, 2 parts Cointreau, 1 part lemon juice, plus a teaspoon of simple syrup. Shaken with ice; served in a chilled glass with that classic ’30s sugar rim.

But what’s up with the whole Prohibition + boozy cocktail combo? The first half of Shadow Ticket is thick with “speaks” serving some mix of bathtub hooch and midnight-run imports. According to the Mob Museum, who seem as appropriate a source as any, the Prohibition years really did feature the range of speakeasies depicted in Shadow Ticket, from divey back rooms to slick dance floor and jazz band setups. The Al Capone of being Al Capone apparently made millions a year supplying beer and liquor to thousands of these establishments under his control. Cocktails gained in popularity at the time in part to cover the potentially rough flavours of whatever booze could be gotten in. By 1932, when we meet Hicks and co, Prohibition was on its last legs. Speakeasies had become mainstream social hubs, bootleg liquor flowed freely, and the law was routinely paid off.

The Sidecar is among the most iconic cocktails of Prohibition, described by an early cocktail revival volume as “the one classic to emerge from the Prohibition Era”. There were a few others going around though. This is well in evidence aboard the Stupendica, the vessel Hicks finds himself shanghaied onto midway through ST:

Champagne Cocktails, Sidecars, French 75s, Jack Roses, and Ward Eights flow without interruption. Staircases grand and otherwise being left unpatrolled by ship’s security, allow different classes of passenger all to shuffle together.

Shadow Ticket, p. 134.

I guess at this point we could suppose that the Stupendica’s sailing in international waters out of Prohibition’s reach. We do learn a little later that they’re mixing those Jack Roses with French calvados instead of U.S. applejack. But whatever jurisdiction, it’s a list of cocktails tailored to 1932 American tastes, from saloon to steerage. I look forward to getting through them all!

How is the Sidecar? It’s just the ticket. A juicy balance of acid and sugar, with orange and oak elegantly intertwined and a good boozy backbone. And extremely easy to drink!

We should note here also that Shadow Ticket‘s sidecars do not occur solely in liquid form. The motorcycle variety appears quite a lot too. One even gets used to rescue a pig:

Sándor and some barroom accomplices perform a snatch-and-grab in the middle of the night, the pig pretending to be asleep, as she is picked up, installed in the sidecar of Sándor’s rig, and spirited away, just like that. Next thing anybody knows she’s riding in the sidecar, done up in helmet and goggles, beaming, posing like a princess in a limousine. Anybody feels like commenting, they don’t.

Shadow Ticket, p. 241.

It’s great to have you back, Mr Pynchon.