Category: Gin

Gin And Ginger Beer – Triangle at Rhodes

Hello crime readers and cocktail lovers!  Today we are reading (and drinking ) our way through a short story from the Murder in The Mews collection, Triangle at Rhodes.  And what better way to sit back and watch the shenanigans taking place on this gorgeous Greek island than with a cocktail in hand?  A gin and ginger beer happens to be one of my favourite  cocktails so I was delighted to find it mentioned in my favourite story in this collection!    I will also point out that the gin and ginger beer is not the most commonly named cocktail in Triangle at Rhodes, pink gin is mentioned multiple times and may have been a better choice.  However, as I am largely reading / rereading the Christie books as I blog about them, I have already used Pink Gin as the recipe for Three Act Tragedy! If you are reading along and would prefer to have that as your tipple, click the link above!

Gin and Ginger Beer1

 

Triangle at Rhodes- The Plot

.Poirot is on holiday at the Greek Island of Rhodes.  The story opens as follows

“Hercule Poirot sat on the white sand and looked out across the sparkling blue water.  He was carefully dressed in a dandified fashion in white flannels, and a large panama hat protected his head.”

It makes me laugh a little bit to imagine the fastidious Poirot sitting on sand.  I feel that he would absolutely loathe it.  Almost as much as we can tell he hates rubbing sun tan oil on someone, which happens in the very next paragraph!  So much for enjoying his break!

The Poirot episode of Triangle at Rhodes, has him seated on a chair which seems far more his style!

Staying at the same hotel ias Poirot s the very glamourous Valentine Chantry and her fifth husband, a naval Commander who is described as a brute and somewhat apelike.

Valentine Chantry

Newly arrived at the hotel are the very handsome but not too bright Douglas Gold and his frumpy wife Marjorie. And with that, all aspects of the triangle are in place!

We have

  • An illicit affair
  • A marriage on the rocks
  • Poirot warning Marjorie Gold to leave the island.  Do not pass go, do not collect £200.  Just go.  Now!
  • Valentine Chantry killed by poison in her pink gin
  • A packet of poison found in a husband’s pocket

The case seems pretty clear cut.  But of course it isn’t because this is an Agatha Christie story so, things of course are not entirely as they seem!  It’s up to Poirot to see the innocent spared and the guilty punished.

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Triangle at Rhodes- The Covers

I could only find one cover for Triangle At Rhodes.

Very beautiful – it makes me want to go to Rhodes!

But while digging about the internet, I was also able to find this from the Strand Magazine version of the story!  Isn’t it glorious?

As we are not spending too much time on the covers, I thought we might look at some of the fashion.  The women are beautifully dressed.

And whoever thought we would see Poirot in shades!

Triangle at Rhodes Fashion 2

 

The Recipe

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Gin And Ginger Beer – Triangle at Rhodes

Spice up your life with this mix of gin, ginger beer and lime.  A lovely refreshing cocktail.

Ingredients

Scale
  • 30ml London Dry Gin
  • 10ml lime juice
  • Ginger beer
  • Ice cubes
  • Mint leaves, lime slices and crystallised ginger to serve

Instructions

  • Mix the gin and lime juice together and pour into your glass.
  • Add the ice cubes and top with the ginger beer.  Stir.
  • Garish with lime slices, mint leaves and a piece of crystallised ginger.

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“Tony, darling it was too divine, ” cried Valentine as she dropped into a chair by his side.  “The most marvellous idea of Mrs Gold’s.  You all ought to have come!”

Her husband said:  “What about a drink?”

He looked inquiringly at the others.

“Pink gin for me darling,” said Valentine

“Gin and ginger beer, ” said Pamela

– Agatha Christie, Triangle at Rhodes

Other Food & Drinks Mentioned in Triangle at Rhodes

 

November’s read will be the titular story from the Murder in The Mews collection.  The setting is Guy Fawkes niight so get ready for fireworks and murder!

Happy reading!

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The Eye of The Tiger

Hello friends!  This weekend people all over the world are celebrating Lunar New Year and the start of the year of the Tiger. Traditional foods for Lunar New Year include long noodles (symbolising long life and happiness) dumplings and spring rolls to bring wealth and fish to increase prosperity. Well, here at Chez Retro Food, we’re also celebrating the Year of the Tiger, but in our own special way!

Tiger Collage

Let’s get to it!

I always think that any occasion should be celebrated with a cocktail.  And Lunar New Year is no exception.  The Norwegian Tiger’s Milk Cocktail comes from a book called The Australian Hostess Cookbook (1969) and  a chapter called “A Party on the Nullabor Plain”.  Now for those of you unfamiliar with the Nullabor Plain, it is an area of some 200,000km  (that would be 76, 000 sq miles for those of you who are not used to the metric system) that is both flat and largely treeless.  Plain is putting it mildly.

I mean, does it not just scream party central?  But I digress.  If the location seems bonkers let’s further examine the cocktail.

Norwegian Tiger's Milk 1

Norwegian.  Tiger’s  Milk.

Nope.

The World wildlife fund reliably informs me that tigers are very versatile creatures and can live in a variety of habitats – rainforests, savannahs, grasslands and mangrove swamps.  Tigers.org.za further specifies that they are most commonly found in China, Korea, Russia and Southeast Asia with Sumatra being the only island inhabited by tigers today.  Not even a whisper of Norway.  And, I’m no geography expert but I’m pretty sure the landscape of Norway is not rampant with savannahs.  Fjords yes.  Mangrove swamps?  No.

(Also note the natural habitat of the tiger is not an “exotic” animal part in Oklahoma.  But don’t even get me started on that one!)

Maybe if you are partying on the Nullabor Plain in 1969 a Norwegian Tiger makes sense.  They took a lot of drugs back then.

Norwegian Tiger’s Milk Cocktail

Copious amounts of drugs may also explain  the ingredients.  Equal parts gin, vanilla ice cream and creme de cacao. It really sounds like something someone with the munchies would pull together.

It also means that whatever measurement you use, (I used 30ml of each) you get a lot of booze and not much ice cream. Norwegian Tiger's Milk recipe

I used a cherry-infused gin which came in a Gin Advent Calendar I bought at Christmas.

Norwegian Tiger's Milk 3

The Norwegian Tiger’s Milk was a LOT nicer than I thought it would be! It tasted like a slightly weird in a good way Bailey’s Irish Cream.  Mine had that hint of cherry but I think without that the similarity to Baileys would be even more marked.  It was also much more of an after-dinner drink than an aperitif but I’ll forgive myself that.  And maybe have another after dinner!  I’m not driving and there is a little bit of gin left in that tiny Advent bottle!

We are continuing the theme of Tiger’s Milk with our starter.

Tiger’s Milk Ceviche

We are heading to Mexico for our starter.  Also not a natural habitat of the tiger.  However, Tiger’s Milk is the name of the liquid used to “cook” the seafood in a ceviche.

Tiger's Milk Ceviche 1

This was soooo good!  I love raw fish and this was zingy with citrus and fiery with chilli and crunchy with tortilla chips and loaded with fresh veg and herbs!  This is the kind of dish I could eat every day.

And it’s so pretty too!  Look at all those colours!

Tiger's Milk Ceviche 2

I used salmon for my fish because I could not get the kingfish specified in the recipe.  I also threw in some tiny tom berry tomatoes for extra colour and as mentioned subbed in some crunchy tortilla chips for the tortillas.  

The recipe for the Tiger’s Milk Ceviche comes from the Matt Preston Cookbook – Yummy Easy Quick Around The World.

Tiger’s Milk  – Hangover Cure?

Tiger’s milk is supposedly a hangover cure par excellence. Maybe for the morning after a few too many Norwegian Tiger’s Milks?   However,  I’ve been hungover once (maybe twice) in my life 😂 and I’m going, to be honest with you.  When I am in that very precarious and fragile state, given the choice of Uber Eatsing a Big Mac and a very large coke and downing some salmon soaking citrus liquid?  I’ll take those two all-beef patties etc any day of the week!

Would you drink the tiger’s milk?

Tiger's Milk

Later this week I’ll share the rest of our tiger-themed celebrations!

 

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Pink Gin – Three Act Tragedy

Hello crime readers and food lovers!  Greetings from Cape Bridgewater!  We are on a little holiday mini-break in far western Victoria, staying in a gorgeous renovated church.  This is all the more appropriate because the first person to be murdered in Three Act Tragedy is the Reverend Babbington, who is felled by a poisoned cocktail!  We decided to celebrate the holiday and Three Act Tragedy with a Pink Gin!

Pink Gin 1

This is the outside of our Air BnB:

St Peter's

The first act of Three Act Tragedy is set in Cornwall, which like our current location is by the coast!

Cape Bridgewater

Three Act Tragedy – The Plot

The famous actor Sir Charles Cartwright hosts a fancy dinner for the local glitterati at his home in Cornwall.    In attendance, among others are Hercule Poirot and Mr Satterthwaite (who is a recurring character in the Harley Quinn novels).  At the dinner, the Reverend Babbington drops dead and it is later found out that his cocktail had been laced with nicotine.

Some months later, Poirot meets Cartwright and Satterthwaite in Monte Carlo.  They tell him that Doctor Bartholomew Strange (great name) who had also been a guest at Sir Charles’ dinner party has also been murdered by nicotine in his glass of port.  With the exception of Poirot, Satterthwaite and Cartwright all the guests at the second dinner had also been at Cartwrights.

Someone at those parties is a murderer.  But who?  And why?

It is up to our favourite Belgian detective to find out!

Pink Gin 2

We have:

  • A vanishing valet
  • Blackmail letters
  • A mysterious woman in an asylum
  • A third murder – this time by poisoned chocolates
  • A drunken husband
  • A secretary behaving suspiciously
  • A writer with an eye for detail who disappears
  • Poirot throwing a sherry party (the idea of this makes me a bit swoony)
  • Some fun banter between Satterthwaite and Poirot.

Sadly, there is no Hastings and no Japp but there is a delightful girl called Egg and Mr Satterthwaite who largely make up for that loss.

Three Act Tragedy – The Covers

Most of the covers through the ages focus on the poisoned cocktail or the effects of it. A few show the actor’s mask which…spoilers!!!! The American title for Three Act Tragedy was Murder in Three Acts and the German title was Nikotin. 

Three Act Tragedy Collage

And of course, it wouldn’t be a Christie cover collage without one totally bonkers cover/  This week it is a  Pan edition from, I’m guessing the 1970’s which features what I think is one of those plague doctor’s masks with spooky glowing red eyes.  None of which has any bearing on the content.

My copy is the classic Tom Adam’s cover.  Here is my attempt to somewhat copy it.  ( Note: we were about 20km away from the nearest town and I was already half a pink gin in when I thought to do this.  There were no roses in the garden and there was definitely no driving to get one but I like to think there is a vague similarity.  I feel my version lands somewhere in the middle of the covers to the left and right of it.

Three Act Tragedy Collage2

Tom Adams says of his cover (right-hand side above)

In this painting of a fading rose against a darly sombre leafy background, I was trying to evoke the menace behind the glittering company

Tom Adams, Tom Adams Uncovered

 

The Recipe – Pink Gin

The Pink Gin cocktail is not made from the Pink Gin that is usually quite sweet and flavoured with berries or rhubarb.  It is a much older creation combining angostura bitters and gin.  The bitters were given to sailors in the British Navy to help them with seasickness but they found it too hard to drink on its own.  They started mixing it with gin to make it more palatable.  Seems like it wasn’t just rum, sodomy and the lash that kept the British navy going.  It was rum, sodomy, the lash and some very pretty pink drinks!!!!  By the 1880’s it became a very popular drink on land as well as on sea.

 ‘Sitting in the underground dimness of the Seventy Two Club and sipping a martini, Egg said: “This is great fun.  I’ve never been here before.”

Freddie Dacres smiled indulgently.  He liked a young and pretty girl….

“Upsettin’ sort of time wasn’t it?” he said.  “Up in Yorkshire, I mean.  Something rather amusin’  about a doctor being poisoned – you see what I mean – wrong way about.  A doctor’s a chap who poisons other people.”

He laughed uproariously at his own remark and ordered another pink gin.  …

“It’s odd, isn’t it, ” said Egg.  “that when we meet it’s always at a death”

Agatha Christie, Three Act Tragedy

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Other Food Mentioned in Three Act Tragedy

Unlike some of the recent novels Three Act Tragedy is LOADED with food references:

Well, the curtain is falling on our third act.  If you are reading along with me, December’s read will be a  huge leap in chronology to 1960 for the seasonal short story The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding.  No prizes for guessing the likely menu item!   Although, I haven’t read it yet so let’s not get too ahead of ourselves!

Have a great week and happy reading!

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Dry Martini – Peril at End House

Greetings crime readers and food, well drink lovers!  Today we are celebrating the delights of the Agatha Christie novel Peril at End House with a fabulous dry martini.  And there are many delights to this book.  First, it is a Poirot, second, the adaptation is filmed in the most gorgeous location and third, we get to drink a martini!

 

Also, for those of you who may think that Christie novels are all knitting and cups of tea at the Vicarage, this book has a Scarface-esque amount of cocaine in it.  Those bright young things of the 1930’s were not shy when it came to a bit of blow!

 

Peril at End House – The Plot

Poirot and Hastings are taking a little vacay to the Cornish town of St Loo.  While sitting on the terrace of the Majestic Hotel, they make the acquaintance of Nick Buckley, a young female who is the owner of End House, a ramshackle mansion next door to the hotel.

Nick tells them that she has escaped death a number of times recently – a heavy painting fell of the wall cliff and onto her bed.  Luckily she had been making tea at the time and missed having her head bashed in by it.  The brakes on her car failed and she is nearly crushed by a boulder on the cliff path.  Indeed, even as she is talking to Poirot and Hastings she is bothered by what she thinks is a bee flying too close to her face.  Poirot later discovers that this was in fact a bullet, not a bee.

Someone is apparently trying to kill Nick Buckley!

Poirot convinces Nick to send for her cousin Magdalena to help keep her safe.  Magdalena is then killed whilst wearing Nick’s shawl, presumably in a case of mistaken identity.

Dry Martini 2

On top of a dead cousin, rafts of cocaine and multiple life attempts we have

  • The wonderfully named Commander Challenger
  • Some shonky Australian housekeepers
  • Chocolates poisoned with cocaine
  • Some wonderful repartee between Hastings and Miss Lemon in the adaptation
  • Missing pilots
  • Love letters and secret marriages
  • Lost wills
  • Fake deaths and mad ex-husbands

Peril At End House – The Covers

There are quite a few foreign covers in this lot – some French, an Italian and even an Arabic (?) one.  Also two FABULOUS pulp fiction covers from the 1950’s or 60’s!

 

The Recipe – Dry Martini

Dry Martini 3

 

 ‘What about a cocktail?’ I suggested. ‘It’s just about the time.’

‘Well—’ She hesitated. ‘Thanks very much.’

‘Martini?’

‘Yes, please—dry Martini.’

I went off. On my return, after having ordered the drinks, I found Poirot and the girl engaged in animated conversation.

‘Imagine, Hastings,’ he said, ‘that house there—the one on the point—that we have admired so much, it belongs to Mademoiselle here.’

‘Indeed?’ I said, though I was unable to recall having expressed any admiration. In fact I had hardly noticed the house. ‘It looks rather eerie and imposing standing there by itself far from anything.’

‘It’s called End House,’ said the girl. ‘I love it—but it’s a tumble-down old place. Going to rack and ruin.’

Agatha Christie, Peril at End House

Print

Dry Martini

A classic dry martini

Ingredients

Scale
  • 2 1/2 ounces Gin,  I used Four Pillars Cousin Vera Gin
  • 1/2 ounce dry vermouth.  I used Noilly Prat
  • Green olive or a lemon twist to garnish
  • Ice cubes
  • Ice

Instructions

Combine the gin and vermouth in a mixing glass full of ice cubes

Stir them to combine.

Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Garnish with an olive (or two) on a cocktail stick.

Notes

If you are not a fan of olives you can also garnish with a lemon twist

 

 

Other Food Mentioned in Peril at End House

Cup of Chocolate

Bacon and eggs (as per every other Poirot)

Marmalade, coffee and rolls.

Good champagne (of couse darling!)

Tisane

Chocolates

Brioches

Chocolate eclairs

I LOVED this book!  It was probably my favourite so far and the adaptation is also mwah chef’s kiss perfect!

If you are reading along, next up is Lord Edgware Dies.

Have a great week and happy reading!

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Damn The Weather – The Sittaford Mystery

Hello crime readers and food lovers!  Today we are drinking with the Dame because the Sittaford Mystery, as wonderful a story as it is, (and it is an absolute cracker) did not have the most inspiring food within its pages.  So, I am playing with the atmospherics of the book and sharing a cocktail called Damn The Weather with Dame Agatha.

Damn The Weather1

 

The Sit-tea -ford Mystery?

Despite having hardly any food and passing references to generic cocktails, what the Sittaford Mystery has in abundance is tea:

  • p73 – A good cry and good cup of tea – there’s nothing to beat them, and a nice cup of tea you shall have at once, my dear
  • p74 – I’ll send the tea up to you
  • p75 cup of tea
  • p 76 Strong tea, bread and butter. Devonshire cream and hard-boiled eggs
  • p 86  I ought to be able to produce  a quiet cup of tea,
  • p178 Tea was laid ready.  Mrs Willett poured out
  • p179 She must be sipping tea with that determined ladykiller Captain Wyatt
  • p186 A cup of tea

Despite its prevalence, there was no way I was going to do a post on the perfect cup of tea.  Least of all because I don’t like it.

And bread and butter and hard-boiled eggs also seem a little….well…basic.

Next to tea, this is quite a boozy book with more than one reference being made to generic “cocktails” and also to brandy. I found a recipe on Difford’s for a cocktail called Damn The Weather which seemed very fitting to the setting of the book. Let’s see why.

The Sittaford Mystery – The Setting

The scene that met his eyes was typical of the English countryside as depicted on Christmas cards and in old fashioned melodramas.  Everywhere was snow, deep drifts of it….up here on the fringe of Dartmoor it had attained a depth of several feet”

– The Sittaford Mystery, Agatha Christie

Sittaford is a tiny village, pretty much cut off from the rest of the world due to the terrible weather.  Which makes it the perfect setting for one of Christie’s closed circle mysteries.

Damn The Weather 2

The Sittaford Mystery – The Plot

Mrs. Willett, the winter tenant of Captain Trevelyan, and her daughter Violet have invited guests for afternoon tea.  After eating, the group decide to do a bit of table-turning (ie summoning the dead).  A message comes from beyond telling them that Captain Trevelyan is dead.

A Short Aside on Table Turning

To my mind table-turning has to be the most inefficient way of contacting the spirits ever.  From what I can gather the table rocks back and forth for each letter…so even to spell out the first part of the message TREV DEAD  that is 20 + 18 +5 +22 rocks of a table.  65 rocks of a table to spell a four-letter word? No thank you.  How long did that take?  How bored do you have to be for that to become viable entertainment?  I mean even trapped in a snow storm  Dartmoor in the 1920’s I would be spelling out H-E-L-L -N -O on the table turning.

 

Anyway, after they have spent HOURS ( my words, not Christie’s) getting that 8 letter message, Major Burnaby, the Captain’s best friend decides to trek the 6 miles on foot to the Captain’s house to make sure he is all right.

He is not.

Trev is indeed dead, having been hit over the head with a sandbag.  Estimated time of death?  Five twenty-five.  The exact same time as the ghostly message from beyond.

(Cue spooky X-files type music).

As if that is not enough, we also have:

  • An errant nephew being arrested for the murder
  • An escaped criminal
  • A reporter keen to get a good story
  • The mystery of just why the Willetts wanted to rent Sittaford House in the first instance
  • Retired police inspectors
  • Newspaper prizes
  • Boots hidden in the chimney
  • Aunts in the know and,
  • Maybe my favourite Christie heroine yet, the adorably plucky Emily Trefusis.  (I am going to forgive her madly standing by her man, even though he is an idiot) because I love everything else about her.

The Sittaford Mystery has an average rating of 3.76 on Good Reads and comes in at # 26 at the time of writing on the All About Agatha podcast rankings.  I feel Iike it a bit better than that but, I have not read all the books yet!.

The Covers

The covers for The Sittaford Mystery (called The `Murder at Hazelmoor in the United States) are amazing!

Sittaford covers collage

I love the nods to the table-turning at the weather and also the dead body on the carpet.  I also like that the French version is called 5:25.  You might also be wondering why some of the titles are called Murder At Hazelmoor and not the Sittaford Mystery.  This was because the American publishers of the book thought their audience would prefer murder to mystery. Tell me, which title do you prefer?

The Recipe – Damn The Weather

You can find the Difford’s guide recipe here.

Damn the Weather 3

 

Other Food Mentioned in The Sittaford Mystery

Oh, so maybe there was more food than I remembered!  Still the Damn the Weather was a fabulous cocktail.

Just a quick note on the adaptation of The Sittaford Mystery. It’s kind of terrible.  For some reason, they made it a Miss Marple instead of a stand-alone mystery as written.  And to be honest Miss Marple does not do a lot.  It’s worth a watch but it is not the best Christie adaptation out there.

Next up in the Christie list is Peril at End House for anyone who wants to read along.

Have a great week!

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