Punctually at the word “away,” my poor friend set off in a strong gallop. The stile was not very high, like Mr. Lord’s — nor yet very low, like that of Mr. Lord’s reviewers, but upon the whole I made sure that he would clear it. And then what if he did not? — ah, that was the question — what if he did not? “What right,” said I, “had the old gentleman to make any other gentleman jump? The little old dot-and-carry-one! who is he? If he asks me to jump, I won’t do it, that’s flat, and I don’t care who the devil he is.” The bridge, as I say, was arched and covered in, in a very ridiculous manner, and there was a most uncomfortable echo about it at all times — an echo which I never before so particularly observed as when I uttered the four last words of my remark.
The Tale
As obliquely insinuated at the end of the above passage, this is a story about the Devil. (I suppose, to be fair, it’s also explicitly stated in the title. But still.) And despite the fiendish subject matter, this is also one of Poe’s humorous tales. The plot is a simple one: The narrator’s friend, one Toby Dammit (haha!), has acquired the habit of punctuating his statements with offers to take a bet. And his favorite formulation of that oath was “I’ll bet the devil my head…” As can be imagined, such an arrogant pronouncement will not go unpunished in a Poe tale.
So we find the narrator and Toby Dammit approaching a covered bridge, and Toby “insisted upon leaping the stile, and said he could cut a pigeon-wing over it in the air.” In response to the narrator’s scoffing, Toby bets the devil his head that he can do it. At that moment the small, old gentleman mentioned in the above excerpt coughs from the shadows and, in so many words, accepts Toby’s bet. The old gentleman gives the signal and Toby runs and jumps…and is decapitated by a horizontal metal bar above the stile that had been hidden by the gloom. The old man runs away with Toby’s head.
The full story is available here.
The drink
The star of this story, I think, is not so much Toby Dammit as it is the devil. Admittedly he doesn’t have much of a speaking role, but it is he who delivers the lesson contained in the story’s title. There’s also something very theatrical about how the narrator’s words (“…the devil he is”) echo uncomfortably through the covered bridge. For these reasons, our drink will focus on the infernal little gentleman.
There are many drinks out there that take some variation of the name “demon blood” or “devil’s blood.” All of them are red, for obvious reasons. But the variant we present here has the signature touches of a devil-horn garnish and a fiery burn.
Ingredients:
2 oz. carta blanca rum
2 oz unsweetened cranberry juice
1-1/2 tbs peppermint schnapps
Several dashes of tabasco (the more the better)
2 chili peppers (for garnish)
Cut slots into the bottom of the two chili peppers and affix them to the rim of a martini glass. Put all the liquid ingredients into your cocktail shaker with ice. Shake the hell out of it (Har!). Strain into the prepared martini glass. Damn, it’s good!
(Note: The tabasco is the key to this drink. Put in as much as you can stand–I did six healthy dashes. The tabasco adds dimensionality and balances the sweet and tart flavors.)
Poe-Script
It’s said that Poe may have gotten the idea for Toby’s mishap from Dickens’ The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. To wit:
“Heads, heads, take care of your heads,” cried the loquacious stranger, as they came out under the low archway, which, in those days, formed the entrance to the coach-yard. “Terrible place — dangerous work; other day, five children — mother — tall lady, eating sandwiches — forgot the arch — crash, knock — children look round, mother’s head off … head of a family off; shocking, shocking.”
