Why do private eyes drink rye?
Why do private eyes drink rye?
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Why do private eyes drink rye?
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Post #1 - September 17th, 2013, 7:30 pmI was just sitting back with a negroni when the memory of a classic Calvin & Hobbes Sunday popped into my head - Calvin was being a perfectly noir P.I., complete with long slanting venetian blind shadows, worldweary banter, and the obligatory pint of rye in the bottom drawer of the desk he was resting his feet on ...
Anybody know where this stereotype comes from, exactly? Sam Spade? Philip Marlowe? Mike Hammer?fine words butter no parsnips
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Post #2 - September 17th, 2013, 7:38 pmThis conversation calls for a boulevardier or better yet a 1794 cocktail (2x on the rye)
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Post #3 - September 17th, 2013, 8:35 pmI was thinking more a straight slug of rye in one of those little cone-shaped paper cups from the dispenser next to the water cooler down the hall that hasn't been refilled since Laszlo the janitor got sent up for gunning his wife's cousin over a fixed trifecta at Belmont ... but you could be right.fine words butter no parsnips
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Post #4 - September 21st, 2013, 4:33 pmI think---and there are many who really know this sort of history better than I---that the heyday of the detective story happened to coincide with the period when rye was simply the standard or default American whiskey.
I don't recall why it fell out of prominence (before its recent revival), but it certainly did. Whether fashion, grain prices, distribution politics/economics or something else I don't know.
I stand open to correction and eager for amplification."Strange how potent cheap music is."
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Post #5 - September 22nd, 2013, 3:58 pmmrbarolo wrote:I think---and there are many who really know this sort of history better than I---that the heyday of the detective story happened to coincide with the period when rye was simply the standard or default American whiskey.
I don't recall why it fell out of prominence (before its recent revival), but it certainly did. Whether fashion, grain prices, distribution politics/economics or something else I don't know.
I stand open to correction and eager for amplification.
Corn was cheaper and more plentiful after prohibition? Just my wild guess.
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Post #6 - September 22nd, 2013, 5:37 pmApparently, the story is that the Canadians moved in to fill the gap when the American distilleries were still recovering from Prohibition. Canadian (non-rye) whiskeys took over and have remained strong ever since.
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Post #7 - September 27th, 2013, 12:57 pmYeah, private eye era was when rye was the default whiskey. Bourbon didn't really start to rise until post WWII, I want to say. That's why rye's contemporary comeback has coincided with the return of so many classic cocktails (and apparently a lot of alliteration, too).
But Philip Marlowe drank gimlets.“I sat down two stools away and the barkeep nodded to me, but didn’t smile.
“A gimlet,” I said. “No bitters.”
He put the little napkin in front of me and kept looking at me. “You know something,” he said in a pleased voice, “I heard you and your friend talking one night and I got me a bottle of that Rose’s Lime Juice. Then you didn’t come back any more and I only opened it tonight.”
“My friend left town,” I said. “A double if it’s all right with you. And thanks for taking the trouble.”
He went away. The woman in black gave me a quick glance, then looked down into her glass. “So few people drink them around here,” she said so quietly that I didn’t realize at first that she was speaking to me. Then she looked my way again. She had very large dark eyes. She had the reddest fingernails I have ever seen. But she didn’t look like a pickup and there was no trace of come-on in her voice. “Gimlets I mean.”
“A fellow taught me to like them,” I said.
“He must be English.”
“Why?”
“The lime juice. It’s as English as boiled fish with that awful anchovy sauce that looks as if the cook had bled into it. That’s how they got called limeys. The English – not the fish.”
“I thought it was more a tropical drink, hot weather stuff. Malaya or some place like that.”
“You may be right.” She turned away again.
The bartender set the drink in front of me. With the lime juice it has sort of a pale greenish yellowish misty look. I tasted it. It was both sweet and sharp at the same time. The woman in black watched me. Then she lifted her own glass towards me. We both drank. Then I knew hers was the same drink.”
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Post #8 - September 27th, 2013, 1:30 pmOh man, I can pick up Raymond Chandler over and over again and it never gets old. But I don't think Philip Marlowe was always that particular about his drinks. He usually drank whatever was being poured.The meal isn't over when I'm full; the meal is over when I hate myself. - Louis C.K.
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Post #9 - September 27th, 2013, 4:30 pmVitesse98 wrote:“I sat down two stools away and the barkeep nodded to me, but didn’t smile.
“A gimlet,” I said. “No bitters.”
.....
Then I knew hers was the same drink."
Ah ... that's the good stuff, right there.fine words butter no parsnips
