“Burgundy makes you think silly things; Bordeaux makes you talk about them; and Champagne makes you do them.”

— Brillat-Savarin

Satisfactory “doin’s”:

“It’s a common saying that no one has been able to tell if they are historians that like to drink or drinkers who like history,” said Dr. Robert J. Chandler, a senior historian at Wells Fargo Bank and a proud member of the group’s San Francisco chapter. “And no one knows because no one has been in any condition to record the minutes.”

In the Atlantic Monthly, Wayne Curtis explores the bitter truth of Fernet Branca–which, contrary to popular misconception, is not the older brother of Glenn.

Other than that, it’s hard to describe what Fernet Branca tastes like; it mostly tastes like Fernet Branca. But to give you an idea: in 1960, Betsy von Furstenberg was suspended from Actors’ Equity for spiking Tony Randall’s onstage drink with it. Randall believed he had been poisoned with iodine.

ANNA: Gimme a whiskey—ginger ale on the side. And don’t be stingy, baby.
LARRY: Shall I serve it in a pail?
ANNA: That suits me down to the ground.

— Eugene O’Neill, Anna Christie

Recalled to mind by the Web log of Ms. Iris Iris, who refers us to a third location, where you may watch the immortal Garbo deliver these immortal lines.

— and the taste of a good whisky as well.

Doctors offer new prohibitions on drinking for the older set. I’ve been exceeding these limits since before the researchers were born, thank you very much. What doesn’t surprise me is that the “risky” drinkers are the happy ones.

I throw in my lot with Bill Ott, who writes, “teetotaling fiction tastes flat to me.” In memoriam, a scribe who never dried up:

“When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon.”

— James Crumley, The Last Good Kiss

“I saw her for the first time that afternoon. It was too hot to do much but sit in an air-conditioned apartment. I’d spent the morning waking up and writing checks to creditors, and in another hour it would be four o’clock and I could add brandy to my coffee without feeling guilty about it. For the time being I was feeling guilty.”

— Lawrence Block, The Naked and the Deadly

The bartender came over. It looked like the wrong bar for cognac but that’s all I drink. I asked for Courvoisier.

“You want the Three-Star or the VSOP?”

Life is filled with surprises.

— Lawrence Block, The Naked and the Deadly

Small wonder one finds oneself drinking more and more at home, given governments’ general hostility toward the constituents of a proper boozer. The Colony Room will soon be shuttered.

‘I see it as my living room, and my only real goal is to send people away happier than when they came in. The drink helps. But it is today so, so difficult. Paperwork and petty laws. It takes great skill to make Soho not Soho, but they’re doing a hell of a job.’

Biologists report that the walrus, while possessing a highly developed sense of humor, suffers from an insufficiently evolved palate.

DEWAR’S 18-YEAR-OLD FOUNDERS RESERVE, BLENDED

All right, guys, keep in mind that I’m new to this. I taste… fruit. Berries, maybe — or grapes. Oh, and it’s also sort of peppery, but then there’s this sweet and sour taste underneath. And — whoa — now my throat is burning. God, it really hurts. How’s this: a Dr-Pepper-and-Chinese-takeout smoothie, and also I’m a sword swallower who just swallowed a sword but screwed it up somehow.