Tag: Pynchon

• Gallo wine with ice

  

  After a couple of moody European spirits (oude jenever and absinthe), it seems about time we have something more frivolous. This one definitely fits that bill. It’s pink and light and sweet and totally without bite. At the start of Chapter Six of V., Profane’s just finished his first day (or actually, night) of alligator hunting in the sewers…

  mjhorn

  September 27, 2014

  V, Wine

  Gallo, Profane, Pynchon, USA

• Oude Genever

  Now we’re getting somewhere. The beaten track just slipped out of sight. Oude Genever.It’s totally obscure to me, but gets a couple of runs in Pynchon, making a grand debut in Gravity’s Rainbow then popping its head up again in Mason & Dixon. In GR, it’s episode fourteen and we’re flashing back in Katje’s memory/imagining to Holland, to the…

  mjhorn

  September 13, 2014

  Gravity’s Rainbow, Mason & Dixon, Other spirits

  Blicero, Genever, Gottfried, Holland, Katje, Pynchon

• Absinthe with water

  From Hemingway’s Papa Doble, on to another drink with a great literary/artistic pedigree: absinthe. We’re all familiar with its green fairy aura of inspired madness and creative self-annihilation. The stuff’s been put away by Baudelaire, Emile Zola, Oscar Wilde, Picasso, Modigliani, etc etc etc. Even more impressively, it gets mentioned in both V. and Gravity’s Rainbow. In V., a not exactly gallant…

  mjhorn

  September 1, 2014

  Gravity’s Rainbow, Other spirits, V

  Absinthe, Czech Republic, France, Pastis, Pynchon, Roger Mexico, Signor Mantissa, Slothrop, Switzerland

• Madeira

  I stepped off my bus this afternoon halfway through Mason & Dixon‘s last chapter. No way could I have gone home and socialised with people at that point. I sat down on the first available bench and finished it. The thing is though, finishing M&D in public isn’t exactly like finishing Lot 49 or Gravity’s Rainbow or any of the other…

  mjhorn

  August 9, 2014

  Mason & Dixon, Wine

  Dixon, Madeira, Mason, Portugal, Pynchon

• Nero d’Avola

  Early in Bleeding Edge, Maxine pays a visit to the VC (which I’m assuming is venture capitalist) who’d supported hwgaahwgh.com (which address now conveniently directs one to the book’s wiki). The VC is Rockwell “Rocky” Slagiatt, who’s dropped his surname’s terminal vowel in order “to sound more anglo,” despite then “becoming disingenuously ethnic again” in Maxine’s…

  mjhorn

  July 29, 2014

  Bleeding Edge, Wine

  Food, Italy, Maxine, Nero d’Avola, Pynchon, Slagiatt

• Rolling Rock

  A week or so ago, I had the unexpectedly excellent experience of visiting the Anheuser-Busch brewery in St Louis. The brewery complex was opened in 1852, and it has some terrific architecture to show for its long history, even if the beer itself is perhaps less exceptional. I was of course curious as to what Pynchonian alcoholic…

  mjhorn

  July 18, 2014

  Beer, Bleeding Edge

  Bars/Places, Driscoll, Horst, Lager, Maxine, Pynchon, Rolling Rock, USA

• Inexpensive (airborne) vodka

  Of all the bars in Pynchon, Kahuna Airlines’ airborne tiki bar must be one of the most colourful: Each 747 in the Kahuna Airlines fleet had been gutted and refitted as a huge Hawaiian restaurant and bar, full of hanging island vegetation, nightclub chairs and tables instead of airplane seats, even a miniature waterfall. Zoyd gets a…

  mjhorn

  July 12, 2014

  Cocktail/mixed, Vineland

  Fiji, Pynchon, tiki bar, Vodka, Zoyd

• Brandy

  Seeing as our friend Tyrone Slothrop’s Pilsner Urquell was such a good idea, we’d better see what else he can recommend us. Or actually–he gets through some classy girlfriends, some of them must have pretty good taste. Let’s try Katje. Mysterious Katje. Near the start of the second part of Gravity’s Rainbow (“Un Perm’ au Casino Hermann…

  mjhorn

  June 28, 2014

  Gravity’s Rainbow, Other spirits

  Bardinet, Brandy, France, Katje, Pynchon, Slothrop

• King Kong

  King Kong? Pynchon helpfully explains that it’s “Crown Royal plus banana liqueur.” (Banana for the monkey, Crown for the King–a little poem in itself.) The internet helpfully elaborates that you can down your King Kong either as a shooter or over ice. Or both! Here we go: As a shot, the King Kong tastes primarily of cough medicine.…

  mjhorn

  June 20, 2014

  Bleeding Edge, Cocktail/mixed

  banana liqueur, Canada, Crown Royal, Pynchon, Shot

• Boilermaker

  Whiskey and Alement hides its vast whisky stores and careful beer selection behind a curtained door in a dead pocket of the Melbourne CBD. It’s a Pynchonesque place, in its way. Hardly lit, full of insiders to its secret and outsiders to the surrounding world. Stocked with mysteriously titled–or just numbered–bottles (“Sing along with Julie Andrews”, “Glamping…

  mjhorn

  June 14, 2014

  Beer, Inherent Vice, V, Whisk(e)y

  Bars/Places, boilermaker, Brooklyn Brewery, Bunnahabhain, Doc Sportello, Pynchon, Roony, Sauncho, Scotland, USA