Tag: 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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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!

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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

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 ‘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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Inflatable Flamingo

Summer is officially over here but hopefully even as the days grow shorter and colder we will still have time for a few more summery cocktails like the Inflatable Flamingo!  The name is so reminiscent of relaxing by, or in, a pool that you can almost feel the warmth of the sun on your skin.  And Inflatable Flamingo is also a very cool name for a very fun drink!

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Don’t let it’s pretty pink innocent nature fool you though, the Inflatable Flamingo packs quite a punch with a combination of gin and rose that could leave you…wait for it….legless if you have too many!  Ah flamingo jokes….most of them are outstanding but if you really feel you need to put your foot down, I’ll flaminstop.

 

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I used the Four Pillars Christmas Gin from 2019 as my gin base which added some spice into the summer berry flavours of rose and berries but your favourite gin will work well.  A Hendrick’s would also be quite fabulous in this!

The recipe makes around 9 serves so why not make up a pitcher of these, grab some friends and hit the pool?  Or maybe just float on down the street?

 

The recipe for the Inflatable Flamingo comes from Adriana Picker’s gorgeous book, The Cocktail Garden. Not only does this book have some great cocktail recipes (Peach and Pineapple Sage Old Fashioned anyone?) but the most beautiful illustrations as well!

The Inflatable Flamingo – The Recipe

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Inflatable Flamingo 4
Recipe via cooked.com.au

I quite often sing to myself when I cook and as I was making the Inflatable Flamingo the song running through my head was Float On by Modest Mouse, particularly the bit that goes:

Alright, already
And we’ll all float on, alright
Already, we’ll all float on, alright
Don’t worry, even if things end up a bit
Too heavy, we’ll all float on

They seemed like some wise words for modern times.

Take care my friends and float on!

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The Late Blumer Cocktail

Happy birthday Judy Blume!  Let’s all celebrate the 83rd birthday of one of my favourite young adult authors by raising a toast with a cocktail known as the  Late Blumer!

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Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret was one of my FAVOURITE books growing up.  I must have read it a hundred times!   The issues of boys and bras and periods and feeling confused and anxious all the time spoke to me in a way that no other book at the time did.

I read and reread this edition of the book.  Funnily enough, I rarely reread books nowadays but as a  child? I could finish a book on a Monday and start it again the following day. Having said that, I am currently rereading Are You There God and it is totally transporting me to back then!

I also read all the other Judy Blume books that were available in the Glen Waverley Public Library.  But Are You There God was by far my favourite.

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The Late Blumer Cocktail

I found this cocktail on A Beautiful Mess years ago  The link to the cocktail recipe on the site no longer works.  So, I am very glad I printed it when I did.  Thank you so much for the recipe Elsie!.

The Late Blumer is a fruity gin cocktail with some spice from the ginger and some herbiness from basil.  In other words, my kind of cocktail!  I love the combination of gin and ginger so this one was always going to be right up my alley in terms of flavour and it did not disappoint!

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Here is my printed recipe:

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And here it is a version with the measurements I thought worked best.

The Late Blumer

1 serving

  • 30mls Gin
  • 1 ripe apricot
  • 4 raspberries plus 1 more for garnish
  • 2 basil leaves plus more to garnish
  • Gingerale to top up your glass – mine was around 150ml.
  • Ice cubes

Mudde the apricots, raspberries and basil leaves in the bottom of your cocktail shaker.

Add the gin and let sit for around 5-10 minutes to allow the flavours to infuse.

Add some ice cubes to a glass and top with the gin mixture. You can strain this of you do not like bits of fruit in your cocktail.  Fill to the top of the glass with ginger ale.

Garnish with additional basil leaves and raspberries and enjoy!

Judy Blume NY Post (1)
via The New York Post

Here’s to you Judy Blume!  Happy birthday!!!  Your writing has helped shaped the lives of generations of girls.  Because we always knew that if we needed some understanding, some kind words or encouragement, we didn’t even need to ask “Are you there Judy?”  All we had to do was open a book.

“Each of us must confront our own fears, must come face to face with them. How we handle our fears will determine where we go with the rest of our lives. To experience adventure or to be limited by the fear of it.”

 – Judy Blume

Tell me, where you a Judy Blume fan?  What was your favourite?

Have a great weekend!

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