Category: Whisk(e)y
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Corn Liquor
Right near the opening of Against the Day, the Chums have the Inconvenience parked at the Chicago World’s Fair. Dally Rideout (who we’ve shared several drinks with before) makes her precocious first appearance: “Pa!” An attractive little girl of four or five with flaming red hair was running toward them at high speed. “Say, Pa! […]
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A Fifth of Jack Daniels
A rare visit to The Crying of Lot 49! The opening sentence’s too much kirsch in the fondue is probably the only booze to rival GR‘s banana mead for Pynchonian icon status, if only by appearing at the very very beginning of his most accessible work. Otherwise, though, there isn’t too much to drink in […]
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Vat 69
A few of my colleagues have recently formed a book club. The club is constituted of a pretty mixed bunch of more and less serious readers, with some romance-only types and a strong “audiobooks are reading too” contingent. Having started with a pretty basic book club staple, we planned then to embark on a season […]
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A Fifth of Old Stagg
In Chapter 13 of V. (in which the yo-yo string is revealed as a state of mind) Profane has occasion to call in a favour Pig owes him. This sends our narrator digressing away on how the favour came to be owed, a tale involving Profane saving Pig’s own mortal bacon via a radar antenna […]
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Irish Whiskey and Water
When we last met here, you were humouring my rambling on at unprecedented length and pretentiousness about fermented horse milk. Let’s maybe settle back down with something a little simpler. Drugged drinks are a bit of a theme throughout Pynchon, if one we’re mostly yet to tackle here. Beer spiked here with LSD, there with […]
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The Macallan
I first cracked open Tom Pynchon’s Liquor Cabinet and got stuck into the Chivas Regal four years ago today. That seems like a good excuse for more whisky. The Macallan graces the same top shelf Bleeding Edge Silicon Alley party bar where we found Stolichnaya Elit and Tanqueray No. 10. Those were both very pleasant, but if I were at […]
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Aged Bourbon
Tommy Boy turns eighty today, and while I won’t say that counts as officially old, it is a pretty creditable age. No doubt he’s got another book coming together, as vivid and profound as anything before… On the occasion of our Chief Chum of Chance’s 80th, I’m toasting Pynchon in Public Day with an 18 year old bourbon. […]
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Rye Whiskey
Rye shows up in both Gravity’s Rainbow and Vineland. In a weird coincidence, the paragraphs in the two books that mention the stuff both also mention Superman. Here they are. Gravity’s Rainbow (p. 752): Superman will swoop boots-first into a deserted clearing, a launcher-erector sighing oil through a slow seal-leak, gum evoked from the trees, bitter manna for this bitterest […]
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Old Fashioned
I’ve recently embarked with the Chums of Chance aboard the good ship Inconvenience—and man, (isn’t this supposed to be some kinda kid’s book?) the air in here sure is alcoholic. My Against the Day list is already 50 drinks long, and I’m not even halfway through. Gravity’s Rainbow only has 45 or 46 all up. And now that’s as smooth […]
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Suntory Scotch
Tom Pynchon’s Liquor Cabinet turned one year old on Wednesday. We started out drinking Chivas Regal with Winsome in V. A year later, it’s a very happy birthday sipping Suntory Hibiki 12 year old. Very happy. My whisky knowledge has progressed not at all in the past year. My tasting notes for this might look something like: The […]
Tom Pynchon's Liquor Cabinet 