h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, if your making drinks, could I have a Pink Gin?

Shame that Portsmouth didn't have a gin named after it, then it might spring to mind more often, in relation to Her Magesty's Navy.

Her Majesty’s Navy. Can't Spell

Oh dear - was it a spell checker that added that nasty ’?

I'll have a good old-fashioned gin&tonic please - and keep them coming...

I did say 'spiritual home', Toccata. Anyway, a pinkers for you and... well now, Titania, do you want an old fashioned *or* a gin and tonic? You can have both if you like. Bung ho one and all.

Oh - I think I'll have one of each - thanks!

Hooray, that's the stuff... now what's in an old fashioned? Stupid that I don't know seeing as I claim to like old fashioned cocktails.

I think it's back to the angostura bitters but I'm not sure.

Yup - and whiskey...

I'll risk quoting the latter half of the relevant stanza:

There is something about an old fashioned
When dusk has enveloped the sky,
And it may be the ice,
Or the pineapple slice,
But I strongly suspect it's the rye.

Pineapple slice? My God, what do they serve these things in - fruit bowls?! I like it!

Fruit?! The only fruit that should get anywhere near my glass is sloe berries. Nothing better than a simple Sloe Gin and some sociable conversation. If you don't have any I could go as far as a G and T or perhaps even, at a push, a Sling of some kind. Gin makes a man mean as they say and I have every intention of finding out.

Well, absolutely. That pineapple slice sounds highly suspicious to me; I was merely ruminating on the size of the receptacle required adequately to launch such a thing. Gin never makes me mean: I just get the same sloppy grin running down my face as with any other booze. Our old friends Plymouth make a sloe gin, but I've never tried it.

Made some sloe gin meself last year. T'was absolutely foul Still, it's been hanging about for a year, so may have improved by now...

Hello all.
A vital martini ingredient has been omitted - olives!

Last place I bought a martini (vodka, never gin), the barman garnished it with 3 of the largest olives you've ever seen, all joined in cocktail bliss by an extra long toothpick. From that point on, whenever I've made a martini (very dry of course - agreed with all of the above sentiments mr spimcoot ) I've always packed a few extra olives in!

Chin Chin!
Wowbagger

What ho Wowbagger, always a pleasure. I considered including olives in my discourse but then one enters an entirely new world of cocktail naming: different names for different numbers of olives and so on. Isn't it the inclusion of a cocktail onion that changes a martini into a Gibson? My favourite olives are the green ones stuffed with anchovies, but I think I'll avoid having one of those swimming around in me booze.

Hmm, I think we are back on fruit again here. You'll be having umbrellas and glace cherries if we are not careful.

Beer me!
~j~

Don't mind him, he's the loo guide for the legless...

I'll take a glass of pure spike, fruit I can't stand that stuf, but I see how anybody else could



-- DoctorMO --

I've never considerd an olive as fruit, truth to tell, but I'll take everyone's word for it.

An understated garnish for a classic drink. Umbrellas are only required if it's about to rain.

There's probably some tedious rule to tell when things are fruit and when they're not. I'm with Wowbagger, though: an olive doth not a fruit cocktail make. Would an umbrella make one's martini dryer?