A Drink, a Book, and a Song

Inaugurating a weekly feature. How to mix a Jungle Bird. Reading about the rise and fall and rise and fall and rise and fall of Rome. And obsessing over a cool Harry Nilsson cover.

Every week, I intend to write about a tasty drink, an interesting book, and a sharable song in the irrationally exuberant hope that someone, somewhere, might give a damn. Just as I never tire of learning something new every day, I hope readers will discover something delightful in these dispatches—a new drink, a book you didn’t know you wanted to read, and an artist you’ve either never heard of before or a deep cut from an artist you already know.

That’s my aspiration, anyway. Next week will probably be a gin and tonic, The Monster at the End of This Book, and “Brand New Key.” Maybe. Well . . . probably not. Who knows?

Though I’m desperately afraid of stagnation, I am mindful of the fact that novel is not necessarily good. (E.g., the “novel” coronavirus.) Nevertheless, everything I’m sharing this week—the drink, the book, the song—I discovered this year. If they aren’t exactly new, they’re at least new to me.

I. A Drink

“There are only two cocktails,” the mostly great Bernard DeVoto observed. “One can be described straightforwardly. It is a slug of whiskey and it is an honest drink. Those who hold by it at 6:00 p.m. offend no canon of our fellowship. Scotch, Irish, rye, bourbon at your will—but of itself alone.” In other words, no Manhattans, Boulevardiers, or even Old Fashioneds.

“Whiskey and vermouth cannot meet as friends and the Manhattan is an offense against piety,” he insisted. “With dry vermouth it is disreputable, with sweet vermouth disgusting. It signifies that the drinker, if male, has no spiritual dignity and would really prefer white mule; if female, a banana split.”

The second cocktail, DeVoto claimed, was the martini, the mixing of which he described elegantly and at length. “There is a point at which the marriage of gin and vermouth is consummated,” he wrote in The Hour seven decades ago. “It varies a little with the constituents, but for gin of 94.4 proof and a harmonious vermouth it may be generalized at about 3.7 to one.” I’ve stayed true to DeVoto’s formulation for 20 years.

As for the rest of it . . . eh, not so much.

For all of his virtues as an essayist, historian, and literary executor of America’s greatest writer, DeVoto was too much of a moralist and a prescriptivist to be a proper Gentleman of the Swig. Though I believe we would have got along, I don’t think we would have gotten on well. "Remember always,” he wrote, “the three abominations are: (1) rum, (2) any other sweet drink, and (3) any mixed drink except one made of gin and dry vermouth in the ratio I have given."

That’s where I depart DeVoto’s camp and make haste for H. L. Mencken’s. “As for me,” Mencken wrote in 1920, “I am prepared to admit some merit in every alcoholic beverage ever devised by the incomparable brain of man, and drink them all when the occasions are suitable—wine with meat, the hard liquors when the soul languishes, beer on jolly evenings. In other words, I am omnibibulous, or, more simply, ombibulous.”

(I’m mostly with Mencken. But every alcoholic beverage? No, no. No, sir. No. One must draw a line somewhere. That somewhere is here. Now let us never speak of it again. And when those links die—and they will, eventually—let future internet archeologists scratch their heads and wonder at what gastronomical and gastrointestinal terror was wiped away. Let them know—let them trust—that whatever that . . . thing . . . was, it was an abomination in the sight of God and an affront to human dignity. It was truly abominable.)

A few months ago, I had dinner with friends at Girl & the Goat in Los Angeles for the first time. Great place. (Check out the menu. The goat curry and the sticky glazed pork shank are out of this world.) (Good Lord, did I just write that?) (Yes. Yes, I did.)

Because of the drive, we showed up about 40 minutes early for our reservation, so we decided to grab a drink at the bar. One of my companions ordered a rum cocktail from the bar menu. It was a house-infused something or other with pineapple juice, banana puree, and coconut. Unlike the food, the drink was merely OK.

I could tell my companion was disappointed, so I did something I’ve only done twice before in my drinking life. When the bartender circled back to inquire about a second round, I said we wanted to change things up a bit and asked him to “surprise us.” The only requirement was that the drink have rum as its main component.

This is a risky move and I would generally advise against it, especially if 1) you are not a regular and 2) the bartender is in the weeds. But it was early in the evening, the place wasn’t too busy yet, and the bartender seemed up to the challenge.

A few minutes later he returned with a pair of rocks glasses filled with a ruby red elixir garnished with a pineapple shoot.

“What is this?”

“It’s called a Jungle Bird. It has rum, Campari . . .”

“Campari?! Wow!”

“. . . pineapple and lime,” he said with a grin.

Never ever would I have thought of mixing Campari, of all things, with sweet rum. Campari is a bitter Italian liqueur notable for it’s distinctive red color. It’s considered an aperitif, often mixed with club soda and meant to be sipped before a meal. It’s great, but a little can go a long way. But the combination of sweet, bitter, sour, and tart, rounded out with a bit of simple syrup, makes for a remarkably bright and balanced cocktail.

I had never heard of the Jungle Bird before February, but it’s actually almost as old as I am. First conceived by Jeffrey Ong in 1973 (a dark age for cocktail culture), it served for many years as a welcome drink for the Kuala Lumpur Hilton in Malaysia. (ThirstMag.com has all the details.)

The recipe is fairly straightforward:

• 1.5 ounces dark rum (the original recipe calls for blackstrap)

• 0.75 ounces Campari

• 0.50 ounces fresh lime juice

• 0.50 ounces simple syrup

• 1.5 ounces pineapple juice

Shake and strain into a rocks glass over ice. Garnish with a pineapple slice and pineapple leaves.

That’s the official recipe. I tend to add a bit more rum at home, usually two or two-and-a-half ounces. I don’t think it throws off the balance much at all. Your mileage may vary, as the sages say.

But if you’re a rummy, a boozer, or a cocktalian of the old school, I suspect the Jungle Bird will be well worth your while—assuming you aren’t familiar with it already. As a refreshing beverage for a hot summer afternoon, the Jungle Bird is tough to beat. Give it a try and let me know what you think in the comments.

II. A Book

I’ve been visiting Ancient Rome off and on for about a year now. Among the several books I read last year, I especially enjoyed UC San Diego historian Edward J. Watts’ Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell Into Tyranny, published in 2018. In August, Watts put out a follow-up called The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome: The History of a Dangerous Idea. I started reading The Eternal Decline in the spring but got distracted by something shiny and set it aside. I picked it up again last week and I’m currently about a quarter of the way through.

Watts surveys 2,200 years of history, debate, and discussion surrounding the rise and fall of Rome, and how the rhetoric of decline and renewal remains with us to this very day. Early on, he writes:

Rome shows that, while prophesies of decline and prescriptions for restoration may seem like inert rhetoric, they can cause deep, profound, and permanent changes to a society and its political life. This rhetoric can justify the elevation of new leaders and the overthrow of old regimes. It can upend existing customs by redefining radical innovation as the defense of tradition. Above all, it can produce victims. Romans knew the power of these ideas. They used them anyway.

In case you’re wondering, Watts very much has recent events in mind. He seems to be an optimist, insofar as historians can be optimistic. “If Rome illustrates the profound danger of targeting other Romans who supposedly caused Roman decline,” he writes, “it also demonstrates the rehabilitative potentially a rhetoric that focuses on collaborative restoration when real decline sets in.” I’m not sure he’s right or whether it works, but I’m withholding judgment (mostly) for now.

His final chapter is titled “Roman Decline and Fall in Contemporary America.” Obviously, I haven’t read it yet, but I have a pretty good sense of the book’s theme so far. Though the temptation to make analogies between America and Rome is impossible to resist, it’s a mistake to over-analogize. America won’t fall like Rome. If and when America falls, it will fall like . . . well, America. Our Visigoths won’t be their Visigoths. They will be something else. Whatever that entails, whatever that might look like, I would not presume to know. I just hope I’m not around to see it.

III. A Song

I’ve been eagerly awaiting—and dreading—the final episodes of “Better Call Saul” on AMC. By now, it’s a commonplace among fans that the show, which began in 2015 as a spinoff and prequel to “Breaking Bad,” has surpassed its predecessor. I agree. The saga of Jimmy McGill is a latter-day Greek tragedy. Hubris meets Nemesis for six seasons.

Although there are three episodes left (and I have an idea of how the story might end), I feel confident asserting that the ninth episode of season six will go down as the very best of the series. Not the season, the series. It answers, at long last, the key question: How did Jimmy McGill fully embrace the character of Saul Goodman? It also answers why the love of Jimmy’s life, Kim Wexler, never appears in “Breaking Bad.”

But I would argue that the episode’s supreme position is secure based solely on the first five dialogue-free minutes, in which we get a montage accompanied by a cover of Harry Nilsson’s “Perfect Day.” As I wrote elsewhere, "If ‘Better Call Saul’ doesn’t win a raft of Emmys for this five-minute sequence alone, there is no justice.”

The “Better Call Saul” version is a duet by Dresage (Keeley Bumford) and Slow Shiver, two musicians who were utterly unknown to me until about . . . oh . . . 12 days ago. When I heard it the first time, watching the show, I gasped the moment Dresage began to sing. Her voice is perfectly bewitching. Just gorgeous.

Warning: If you haven’t watched the series or you aren’t caught up yet with season six, do not watch the first video—it depicts the aftermath of some major developments in the previous two episodes. I’ve embedded a spoiler-free version video of the audio just below the show clip.

The song has burrowed completely into my brain, I’m telling you. I listened to it over and over on YouTube last week. Then I downloaded it from iTunes. Then I listened on repeat this week on Spotify. I’ve listened to it 400 times at least . . . easily. Does that make me an obsessive? To ask the question is to answer it. Duh. I wouldn’t expect anyone to be as obsessive as me, but . . . it’s a cool song. Check it out, by all means. I’d go so far as to say it’s better than the original. In the same league as Jimi Hendrix’s version of “All Along the Watchtower.”

I’m keen to hear more from Dresage and Slow Shiver, individually and, ideally, in collaboration.

IV. A Final Note

I’ve picked up a dozen subscribers over the past week by doing nothing at all. Thank you for taking a chance on me. This is an experiment. I’m not quite sure where it’s going just yet, I don’t suppose I’m the first to say here, which is why this newsletter is free (for now). But I can tell you that I’ve been inspired by my friend and fellow Gentleman of the Swig Christopher Gage, whose Oxford Sour is essential reading. No hype. If you’ve come to me through Gage, you already know his value. If you’ve found me some other way, please give him a read. I think you will find he’s worth the modest price of a subscription. Cheers!