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THE EXOTIC DRINKING BOOK
all the camels while the Arab boys haggled over some eternal native
unimportance, tied them in a line, and mounted most insecurely on
a pair of dromedaries of antique perfume, doubtful morals, and the
manners of a horned toad, we led them to the Sphinx and tethered
them to the claim-stakes of some random excavating party then in
operation during daylight hours, between the Sphinx's feet. It didn't
make sense then, and it doesn't now, but the row those Arabs and
dragomen tossed up when they found the whole mess of camels van–
ished was something to take down on a sound track.
Take of dry gin,
l
pony, absinthe,
l
pony, dry imported apricot
brandy,
l
pony; donate
Yi
pony of bright rose coloured grenadine.
Shake with lots and lots of ice and strain into
q
large saucer cham–
pagne glass, and pray Allah for forgiveness of
all
imminent and
fu–
ture sins of the flesh.
THE GRANDE BRETAGNE COCKTAIL No. I, BEING to OuR
UNGOVERNED MIND
ONE
of the FrvE or Srx CHIEF CocKTAILS of the
WHOLE
w
IDE WoRLD
One dank, chilly, and snow-carpeted day
in
January of
1931
we
wore 'out shoe leather, shins, and temper in the name of "history" and
"art," hiking all over the Acropolis in Athens; skidding from the
Temple of Diana, around the Parthenon, and back down past the
Erectheum and its divine caryatids, and to our motor car and to
Athens proper. Here we met Eddie Hastings, now cruise director for
the M.S.
BREMEN
with Raymond-Whitcomb, and he told me about
the little Greek barkeep in his tiny bar and his miraculous inventions.
. . . This Grecian male had been abarring for over
40
years, man and
boy. During that time he had devoted
Yi
hr
daily to the pardonable
indoor pastime of testing new and radical mixes all his own. The
Grande Bretagne Nos. I and II, were the final result-the pinnacle.
Using lime juice we found later is far better than lemon, although
lemon is plenty good enough. Use
dry
imported apricot brandy, never
the sweet syrupy American copy.... No. I:
l
jigger of the best dry
gin possible,
Yi
pony apricot brandy,
Yi
pony or so of strained lime or