Lady Killer by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is a delightful fast read and such a glorious period piece. It seems like every noir writer working in the 40s had to write a twisted thriller set on board a cruise ship, which leads me to believe that they all let themselves get talked into cruising out of New York and down to the tropics in the winter, found themselves bored and in a bit of a constant dark drunk stupor, and invented bizarre murder plots set on cruise ships and tropical islands to keep themselves amused.
This book mentions a cocktail called the Carlito in Chapter 15. It was invented by one of the characters, which is fantastic, but we don’t find out what’s in the drink, which is not so fantastic. But you know what they do drink an awful lot of in this book? Champagne cocktails.
So here’s what you’re gonna do:
Champagne
Sugar cube
Angostura bitters
Get a bottle of nice French champagne. I don’t think Honey would have been drinking California champagne in those days. Don’t spend a fortune–something in the $15 price range will do. Failing that, get a good Spanish cava for $10-15 and you’re good.
Get a champagne goblet if you can (the wide, shallow kind of champagne glass) but failing that, a flute will do.
Drop in a sugar cube and douse it with about six drops of Angostura bitters. (Angostura is most certainly the brand the ship would have served.)
Give the bitters a minute to soak in, then top with Champagne.
Drink a toast to Honey and Weaver. They’re going to need it.
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