Tom Pynchon's Liquor Cabinet

May 25, 2014

Tequila Sunrise

Bleeding Edge is the book that inspired this project. According to my (very work in progress) list, it mentions 32 different specific drinks, crushing V.’s paltry 17. Benny Profane and the Whole Sick Crew in V. are way drunker than Bleeding Edge’s Maxine Tarnow, but they’re always just drinking “beer” or “wine.” Bleeding Edge gets nice and specific. Mamajuana? Fernet-Branca? A…
May 17, 2014

Chianti

Sticking with V for another: it’s 1899 and we’re in Florence with a “seedy looking Calabrese” called Cesare. Cesare’s mates have just commandeered a barge loaded with crated Chianti flasks, throwing the captain into the Arno. Cesare waved. “A riverdeci.” Soon they had disappeared, dissolved in the darkness. Cesare put his hands in his pockets and started to…
May 13, 2014

Chivas Regal

We’re in the second section of Chapter five (in which Stencil goes west with an alligator) of V., and Winsome’s sitting on his “grotesque” espresso machine smoking something referred to as “string.” The string was from Bloomingdale’s, fine quality: procured by Charisma several months before on one of his sporadic work binges; he’d been a shipping clerk that time.…