Friday, June 8, 2018

Paying Homage to Philip Marlowe with the Gimlet



R.G. Belsky, a longtime New York City journalist and a crime fiction author, is making Gin Gimlet's to celebrate his new mystery YESTERDAY’S NEWS published by Oceanview in May. This is the first book in a series featuring Clare Carlson, the news director for a New York City TV station and with RG's experience in newsrooms, it's bound to have the inside story. Can't wait to dig in... 



I'm going to go with the gimlet as the drink for my book YESTERDAY'S NEWS, a Clare Carlson Mystery.
YESTERDAY’S NEWS is about a legendary missing child cold case – and a journalist obsessed with finding out answers to what really happened. 
Fifteen years ago, an 11-year-old girl named Lucy Devlin disappeared on her way to school in New York City – and was never heard from again. Clare Carlson, a young newspaper reporter at the time, became a media star covering the sensational story – even winning a Pulitzer Prize. Now she is the news director of a New York TV station. 
But, on the 15th anniversary of Lucy Devlin’s disappearance, the story explodes into the headlines again with new evidence, new victims and new suspects. 
And Clare Carlson finds herself being drawn back into a baffling story that she thought she had left behind her a long time ago. 
Now Clare, like a lot of people in the New York City media, does a lot of hard-living and hard-drinking around town. She doesn't really drink gimlets, at least as far as I know. Like most journalists, she's more of a beer and straight liquor type of woman.
But the inspiration for YESTERDAY'S NEWS and Clare Carlson (like every other book I've written) really originated back when I first read Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe, then decided I wanted to write mystery novels too.
And Philip Marlowe's favorite drink was the gimlet.
Well, the truth of the matter is the gimlet didn't make an appearance in Chandler's work until one of his final books, The Long Goodbye. That's when Marlowe drinks gimlets with his "friend" Terry Lennox and waxes eloquently about the drink. In fact, Chandler mentions the gimlet numerous times throughout the book, identifying it with Marlowe forever in literary history.  The story was that Chandler had discovered the drink on a trip to England and liked it so that he decided to have Marlowe drink gimlets too. 

It's not a common drink today and a bit old-fashioned - but also simple to make.


Classic Gin Gimlet

Ingredients:
  • 2 ounces gin
  • 3/4 ounce fresh lime juice
  • 3/4 ounce simple syrup
  • Lime wedge, for garnish


Directions:

Fill shaker with ice and pour in the gin, lime juice and simple syrup.

Stir until cold.

Strain into a chilled cocktail glass – or any glass filled with ice.

Garnish with the lime wedge.

                                        

That's all there is to it to drink Philip Marlowe's favorite drink. In fact, it's so simple maybe I'll have Clare Carlson drink one in my next book. Yep, instead of beer or bourbon, I'll have her betting down a gimlet.

I think Marlowe would like that.  

You can find RG on Twitter @DickBel and Facebook.

2 comments:

  1. This sure was fun to do! Thanks for having me on your website....

    R.G. Belsky

    ReplyDelete
  2. If it's good enough for Marlowe, it's good enough for me ;-)

    ReplyDelete