Mark Bittman, writing for the New York Times, asks:

Why not make cocktails from scratch, ignoring the names and acknowledging your preferences?

No doubt he was schooled by one of those forward-thinking history teachers who told him that it wasn’t necessary to learn dates or, heaven forbid, facts. If a London cabbie must memorize his A-Z before he’s allowed the run of the streets, shouldn’t a licensed mixologist be required to learn the proper proportions for a thousand or so of the most popular cocktails? Does this Bittman truly believe that bartending is less important than driving?

“Colin Miller pulled out a hip flask, took a swig, then offered it to Logan: rusty nail, the mixture of whisky and Drambuie going down like alcoholic central heating.”

— Stuart MacBride, Flesh House

The painter Leopold Segedin creates not only with the brush but also with the swizzle stick. An aficianado of the gin manhattan, he has taken the time to share with us the theory and practice of martinis. I was quite taken with this quote from Bunuel:

.…it was said that the making of a dry martini should resemble the Immaculate Conception, for, as St. Thomas Aquinas once noted, the generative power of the Holy Ghost pierced the Virgin’s hymen ‘like a ray of sunlight through a window – leaving it unbroken’.

“I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered.”

— George Best

“The best advice on touring I ever got came from the publisher of my children’s mystery books . . . Very simple advice. She said, ‘Use the minibar.’”

— Peter Abrahams

“He was the kind of drunk whose wits accumulate as the spirit level rises.”

— Declan Hughes, The Price of Blood

“We had all the drinks. Dublin town ran out of drinks. And you said you had the last of the drinks back here.”

— Dave Donnelly in Declan Hughes’s The Price of Blood

“I don’t know about Tommy’s, but mine tasted like the first pint God made.”

— Declan Hughes, The Price of Blood

“Amateurs want the weekend to keep going on Sunday. Monday is pro’s night, real terminal cases.”

— Ed Loy in Declan Hughes’s The Price of Blood

“Everyone knows writers are all badly-dressed overweight cantankerous faux-humble alcoholics with a chip on each shoulder and a grudge against the world. And that’s just the women.”

— Jackie Tyrell in Declan Hughes’s The Price of Blood