Peanuts – Chasing Phantoms

You’ve played the game…now make the drink!

Today’s drink is the mysteriously-named Necromancers Martini, thoughtfully brought to my attention by my daughter-in-law Katelyn. (Thanks, Katelyn!) But first let me tell you a little story:

When I was a wee lad, my grammar school would occasionally have a book sale, and we’d be sent home with brochures from Scholastic Book Services (TM) hawking cheap paperbacks. Mom and Dad would usually let me get a book or two, and one year, for reasons still unclear to me, I chose something called “Peanuts Cook Book.”

I had absolutely no interest in cooking, but I suppose the Peanuts theme appealed to me. The book contained recipes for “Lucy’s Lemonade,” “Great Pumpkin Cookies,” “Linus’s Security Cinnamon Toast,” and a bunch of others. The only thing I ever made was the cinnamon toast, which involved (1) toasting bread, and (2) sprinkling it with sugar and cinnamon. (By the way, I think my parents paid like a buck for that book in 1969; a used “collectible” copy is currently available for $51!)

Anyway, my point in bringing this up is that, even at the tender age of eight, I realized that the book was a cynical effort to capitalize on the popularity of Peanuts. The recipes really had nothing to do with Peanuts at all. They were just basic recipes for midcentury kids fare, such as mac and cheese, a hot cheese and tomato sandwich, and the aforementioned cinnamon toast. The only difference is they slapped a Peanuts-related name onto each recipe, and added a few topical Peanuts cartoons.

I think you can see where this is going.

The Necromancers Martini comes from the latest issue of Benicia Magazine, which also contains a couple of other Halloween recipes that the author promises are “just the thing to get us into the spooky season.” A necromancer, as you may or may not know, is a person who communicates with the dead. I know this because a year or two ago I watched a movie from 1941 called The Necromancers. (It’s also called The Spell of Amy Nugent, Passing Clouds, Spellbound, and Ghost Story.) Almost everyone reviewing it on IMDB hates the movie, and admittedly Citizen Kane it ain’t. But I found it oddly entertaining, relating the story of a young man seeking help from spiritualists to get in touch with his deceased, young fiancee.

Anyway, a Necromancer Martini sounds suitably spooky and appropriate for our Great Halloween Cocktail Adventure, so let’s make one!

The recipe: Add 1 oz Bloody Mary mix, 1.25 oz gin, and 1/4 oz. dry vermouth to a cocktail shaker. Add ice and shake. Pour into a martini glass that has celery salt on the rim. Add a garnish of olives.

The Ratings: Did you see what just happened? We took your standard martini and added some Bloody Mary mix. That’s it. So part of me feels cheated — there was no effort (at least, none written into the recipe) to link the name (“necromancer”) to the finished product. It’s like Linus and the cinnamon toast. The name is irrelevant to the drink.

But maybe I’m being too unimaginative. Bloody Mary, of course, comes from 19th-century folklore as an apparition that appears in a mirror and conveys information about your future (or scratches your eyes out, depending on the version). So maybe it’s not a huge stretch to say that the necromancer martini cleverly symbolizes a folk story about communicating with the dead.

Anyway, the appearance is very much like a standard Bloody Mary breakfast drink that’s been poured into a martini glass. The dissonance of the stemware is playful, I suppose. And the drink does kind of resemble blood. So, while I wouldn’t normally think of this as a “Halloween” drink, I do understand how it could be so categorized. I’ll give the appearance two points.

The taste is confusing. We’ve either taken a perfectly good dry martini and added Bloody Mary mix, or we’ve taken a perfectly good Bloody Mary and substituted gin for the vodka and olives for the celery. Either way, the overall effect is a little jarring. It’s not bad, though, and by the last gulp I actually wished I had a little more. I’ll give it 2.5 points. But it would probably have received more points if it were just a straight-up Bloody Mary.

In terms of the name: You had me at necromancer. Either as a cynical effort to pass off this martini as a Halloween drink, or as a clever and subversive link between Bloody Mary and necromancy, the name features a solid link to Halloween and doubtless sent many people running for their dictionaries. Two points.

Grand Total: 6.5 points.

Bonus: You can watch The Necromancers/Spellbound/Passing Clouds/Ghost Story/The Spell of Amy Nugent for free on YouTube. Drink a Necromancers Martini while you do so!

“It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.”

Thus began Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s 1830 novel, Paul Clifford. The book has been maligned as an archetypal example of bad writing, with its florid phrases and purple prose. But, in my opinion, it stands up as a novel…at least by 19th-century standards.

Still, over time, that introductory phrase–“It was a dark and stormy night”–became a trope for hack writing, a meme before memes were a thing. It was maligned in Charles Schultz’s “Peanuts” comic strip in the 1970s. In 2009 a movie by that name was released by Larry Blaimore, the man who brought us the inimicable “Lost Skeleton of Cadavra.” (And I actually do recommend that film.) Oh, and inevitably there came to be an annual contest poking fun at Bulwer-Lytton’s opening line. So, it’s well established that “Dark and Stormy Night” is a thing. And not a very good thing.

But for our purposes, “It was a dark and stormy night” sets a stereotypical Halloween scene. Think of the “Old Dark House” movies, which include, of course, the classic film starring Boris Karloff from 1932, and a 1963 remake starring Tom Poston (who you’ll remember from “Newhart”). Maybe next year’s October theme should be ODH movies…

So if it hasn’t been made clear already, today’s cocktail is something called a “Dark and Stormy.” It’s a well-established drink, based on dark rum. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a Halloween drink, but the name does give it a reason to appear on our list.

The recipe: It’s simplicity itself. Combine 2 oz dark rum, 3 oz ginger beer, and 1/2 oz lime juice into an ice-filled glass. Stir, drink, and enjoy.

The ratings: I have to confess that this is the first time I’ve tried a Dark and Story. And I was pleasantly surprised. It’s one of the more drinkable rum-based drinks that I’ve encountered.

It’s appearance leads with a nice, honey-colored hue. The darkness of the rum is ameliorated a bit by the ginger beer, but it would be easy to darken it a shade with a heavier proportion of dark rum. Or maybe even add a bit of dark molasses? Sadly, there was no molasses in the house, so I wasn’t able to test this theory. In its basic incarnation, I can’t give it more than 2 points.

The taste is awesome! The substance and potency of the dark rum is nicely balanced by the ginger beer. The lime juice prevents the drink from being too cloying. It’s remarkably easy to drink. In fact, I was able to throw three of these back with no problem at all. Though perhaps that’s an indication of other concerns… Anyway, this is fully deserving of the full 4 points.

Frankly, the name is the only reason this drink is on our list this month. But what an evocative, moody name it is! It fully deserves the full 2 points.

Grand Total: 8 out of 10 points.

I think, in the background over the rest of this month, I’m going to experiment with some variations on the Dark and Stormy. I just tried adding a bit of coffee liqueur, but that didn’t do much for me. I think I’ll try adding Kahlua, molasses, more dark rum, and/or some imperial stout. I’ll keep you posted on developments. Or experiment yourself and let me know what you come up with!

Tag: Peanuts

Of Celery and Olives

Edward Bulwer-Lytton Strikes Again