Tag: Reef Traverse
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Ouzo
If the drinks dotted liberally through Against the Day represent a boozy symphony, ouzo appears as a major-key motif late in the piece. We first find Cyprian drinking it among “fair limbs and spring sunrises” in Salonica: “It was the absence of all hesitation here that impressed Cyprian, setting aside the ouzo and hashish whose…
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Sazerac
Against the Day serving up another favourite! Ever since as a somewhat pretentious teenager I decided it should be thus, I’ve esteemed the Sazerac above all other cocktails. It’s a boozy contemplator, rye whiskey lifted and complicated with some sugar, Peychaud’s bitters and hint of absinthe. A slightly weirder, more gothic Old Fashioned. Pynchon’s Sazerac…
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Jurançon White
A bit over a year ago, I was in lockdown drinking a very tasty German white wine from Gravity’s Rainbow. In 2021, things are looking totally different, where by totally different I mean exactly the same except the wine is French and the book is Against the Day. This year’s lockdown white is the 2017…
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Nebbiolo
Right near the end of Against the Day, we witness Dally and Kit reunite with Reef and Yashmeen in Turin. There’s a little wife-with-ex-lover tension, but the whole thing basically seems to go very nicely. Page 1073: To celebrate they all went out to dinner at the Ristorante del Cambio, known locally as “the old lady.”…
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Mavrodaphne
One spring late in Against the Day, Auberon Halfcourt and Umeki Tsurigane find Yashmeen, Reef, and baby Ljubica on the Greek island of Corfu. They dine “in a taverna down by the harbour in Garitsa.” Page 975: They sat at a long table and ate tsingarelli and polenta and yaprakia and a chicken stoufado with…
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Absinthe Frappé
This here is the fiftieth drink to join our digital cabinet of liquors! And a mighty fine addition it is too. If I were asked elect an emblematic spirit for each Pynchon book, some choices would be easy. White corn whiskey would represent Mason & Dixon. Lot 49 might be kirsch. And Against the Day would be absinthe. The denizens of AtD take their absinthe in…
Tom Pynchon's Liquor Cabinet 