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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Oct 25, 2021 15:16:58 GMT
I've been told that adding a couple of drops of water can enhance the flavour of whisky too. But I wouldn't know. Is it true?
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Oct 25, 2021 15:20:17 GMT
Thank you. I liked your dad, and his books remain a big deal to me. As for this posthumous collaboration, although Hugh only selected (as it were) two of the stories, it could easily pass for Vol III of Gaslit Nightmares. Seems that way to me, anyhow. "And now my grisly experiences began ...."Grant Allen - Our Scientific Observations on a Ghost: ( Belgravia, July 1878, as by J. Arbuthnot Wilson; Strange Stories, 1884). Our narrator, Jim, and fellow Oxford bachelor, Henry Stevens spend their gap year at Egerton Castle, an Elizabethan manor house on the Flintshire coast, which is allegedly haunted by Algernon Egerton, decapitated for his involvement in Monmouth's thwarted rebellion. To settle the young gents' dispute over the existence of ghosts, the phantom Algernon materialises - he's since been reunited with his head - and subjects himself to several experiments, including an attempted vivisection. But how can a spectre prove to a stubborn sceptic that he is what he claims to be? Thomas Burke - Miracle in Suburbia: ( Night Pieces: Eighteen Stories, 1935). Joe Brown, impoverished young rogue, is approached by 'Old Bonehead,' mysterious lurker in the local coffee shop, who offers to hand over a whopping Ā£50 in return for his retrieval of a porcelain goblet of Chinese origin, stolen from the Bool museum. In short, Joe is required to mug the alleged thief near Sloane Square tube station and steal back the relic. There will be no repercussions: theft from a thief is no crime, and besides, Joe will be under the old timer's miraculous protection hereafter. To prove it, he takes up a scythe and slices the youth's wrist. Not even a scratch! Joe duly earns the money. The victim put up quite a struggle - he drew a razor across Joe's throat! - but again, no harm done. The suddenly wealthy young man can't believe his luck. And then ... J. H. Pearce - Ego Speaks: ( Tales from the Masque, 1894). Wretched postmortem non-exploits of a murdered man. "If only annihilation might have followed the stoppage of the pulse." Essential reading for Monday morning. Death's release is not all it's cracked up to be. Wow, thank you! That's quite an accolade. You are so knowledgeable, perhaps you can add to this thread: vaultofevil.proboards.com/thread/7586/lesser-magazines-published-horror-weird
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Post by Dr Strange on Oct 25, 2021 15:31:24 GMT
I've been told that adding a couple of drops of water can enhance the flavour of whisky too. But I wouldn't know. Is it true? Lots of people seem to think so, but I have never done it. My father would sometimes have a separate glass of water alongside a glass of whisky. I also remember an old woman from when I was a kid who always asked for a dash of milk in her whisky.
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Oct 25, 2021 15:37:29 GMT
I've been told that adding a couple of drops of water can enhance the flavour of whisky too. But I wouldn't know. Is it true? Lots of people seem to think so, but I have never done it. My father would sometimes have a separate glass of water alongside a glass of whisky. I also remember an old woman from when I was a kid who always asked for a dash of milk in her whisky. Perhaps she drank something like potcheen when younger. I think I read they used to add milk to it.
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Oct 25, 2021 16:22:04 GMT
I've been told that adding a couple of drops of water can enhance the flavour of whisky too. But I wouldn't know. Is it true? Lots of people seem to think so, but I have never done it. My father would sometimes have a separate glass of water alongside a glass of whisky. I also remember an old woman from when I was a kid who always asked for a dash of milk in her whisky. I do like the idea of drinking absinthe, or whisky even, if I was a man and a poet or writer. Oh but I couldn't manage it. The most I can manage is a babycham, or a sherry.
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Oct 25, 2021 16:26:25 GMT
I read that The Enlightenment happened because they started to drink coffee and opened coffee shops, prior to this they had to always drink beer, as the water was poisonous, and so they were always slightly drunk. I'd never thought of that before.
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Post by samdawson on Oct 25, 2021 16:26:48 GMT
Absinthe made a brief comeback in popularity in the 90s, and I remember being in pubs where they went through the whole ritual when serving it. But I remember the absinthe being poured over the sugar cube, which was then briefly set on fire before the water was poured over it. Apparently that's a newer phenomenon and frowned upon by true absinthe connoisseurs. My experience is very limited but a few years back at a local showing of Nosferatu & Dr Caligari the local distillery brought along their new absinthe and served it using an absinthe fountain borrowed from the occasion from the V&A. This dispensed ice water into glasses of absinthe, the water passing through lump sugar on a perforated implement like a broad knife. I was driving later that evening so could only take a sip. I was intrigued that it included wormwood in the traditional measures, although I had always thought this was illegal - apparently it isn't, in the UK at least. The distiller mentioned that she spent two days tripping after failing to wear PPE when making up the first batch. Later I bought a bottle from them, costing Ā£80. Without the fountain all I achieved was either a bitter brew or a ghastly sickly syrup. They recommend buying a fountain and implements; they are probably right. They also suggest mixing it with rose lemonade, which does produce quite a pleasant cordial type drink, but not quite what one associates with absinthe. Half a bottle remains in my drinks cabinet. Perhaps one day a goth with more experience of mixing it will drop around.
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Post by Dr Strange on Oct 25, 2021 16:28:06 GMT
Perhaps she drank something like potcheen when younger. I think I read they used to add milk to it. That's entirely possible. Where I grew up (Caithness in the far north of Scotland) there was prohibition between 1922 and 1947 in the main town (Wick), due to the Temperance Movement having taken over the town council - which meant there were shabeens in the town and illicit stills operating all over the county. I remember my dad telling me that there were a few stills operating around where I grew up well into the 1950s. There is an old abandoned crofting settlement a couple of miles from my old house where you can still see a hidden compartment that was built into the walls of a byre to conceal a still. The waste from the still emptied into the channel that drained animal waste from the byre, very effectively hiding the smell of distilling.
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Oct 25, 2021 17:17:13 GMT
Perhaps she drank something like potcheen when younger. I think I read they used to add milk to it. That's entirely possible. Where I grew up (Caithness in the far north of Scotland) there was prohibition between 1922 and 1947 in the main town (Wick), due to the Temperance Movement having taken over the town council - which meant there were shabeens in the town and illicit stills operating all over the county. I remember my dad telling me that there were a few stills operating around where I grew up well into the 1950s. There is an old abandoned crofting settlement a couple of miles from my old house where you can still see a hidden compartment that was built into the walls of a byre to conceal a still. The waste from the still emptied into the channel that drained animal waste from the byre, very effectively hiding the smell of distilling. I wonder how far she ever travelled? There was a woman called Hannah Hauxwell who, until she was discovered by a TV documentary producer in the 1970s, never seems to have left the area around the dale she was born in and lived as her mother and grandmother would have lived. When I was reading about the Second World War some of the farmers never really noticed the war, it was distant and maybe they got evacuees in the area, but nothing impacted them directly, there lives were a borderline struggle with poverty anyway and everyday was a struggle with the land and weather to exist.
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Post by Dr Strange on Oct 25, 2021 18:39:52 GMT
Although remote from the rest of the UK, Caithness had a fair amount of involvement in WW2 - mainly due to being so close to Scapa Flow in Orkney, which was Britain's main naval base in WW2 (being on the very limit of the range of German bombers). There was an RAF base sited in Caithness, and occasional dogfights with German fighters were witnessed by locals - another childhood memory is my dad showing me a large bullet hole in the glass above the door of an old house in the hills, miles from anywhere, that was apparently a stray round from one of these dogfights. He also told me a story about some locals out in the hills cutting peat, who saw a plane that was shot down crash nose-first into a bog and just disappear. Wick was bombed by the Luftwaffe once, apparently just to get rid of some bombs that they hadn't for some reason been able to drop on Scapa Flow. There was also a German POW camp up there.
This is all majorly off-topic, but all these memories just started coming back to me, and I just wanted to put them down somewhere.
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Post by Swampirella on Oct 25, 2021 18:43:03 GMT
Although remote from the rest of the UK, Caithness had a fair amount of involvement in WW2 - mainly due to being so close to Scapa Flow in Orkney, which was Britain's main naval base in WW2 (being on the very limit of the range of German bombers). There was an RAF base sited in Caithness, and occasional dogfights with German fighters were witnessed by locals - another childhood memory is my dad showing me a large bullet hole in the glass above the door of an old house in the hills, miles from anywhere, that was apparently a stray round from one of these dogfights. He also told me a story about some locals out in the hills cutting peat, who saw a plane that was shot down crash nose-first into a bog and just disappear. Wick was bombed by the Luftwaffe once, apparently just to get rid of some bombs that they hadn't for some reason been able to drop on Scapa Flow. There was also a German POW camp up there. This is all majorly off-topic, but all these memories just started coming back to me, and I just wanted to put them down somewhere. Thank you for sharing them with us!
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Oct 25, 2021 18:46:11 GMT
Although remote from the rest of the UK, Caithness had a fair amount of involvement in WW2 - mainly due to being so close to Scapa Flow in Orkney, which was Britain's main naval base in WW2 (being on the very limit of the range of German bombers). There was an RAF base sited in Caithness, and occasional dogfights with German fighters were witnessed by locals - another childhood memory is my dad showing me a large bullet hole in the glass above the door of an old house in the hills, miles from anywhere, that was apparently a stray round from one of these dogfights. He also told me a story about some locals out in the hills cutting peat, who saw a plane that was shot down crash nose-first into a bog and just disappear. Wick was bombed by the Luftwaffe once, apparently just to get rid of some bombs that they hadn't for some reason been able to drop on Scapa Flow. There was also a German POW camp up there. This is all majorly off-topic, but all these memories just started coming back to me, and I just wanted to put them down somewhere. Were the winters bad? Scotland gets the worst temperatures for the UK. Were you cut off?
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Post by Dr Strange on Oct 25, 2021 19:06:28 GMT
Were the winters bad? Scotland gets the worst temperatures for the UK. Were you cut off? Yes, as a kid living out in the countryside we would have powercuts most winters, as ice accumulating on overhead power lines would bring them down, and the main road that ran past us was often blocked by snow drifts. There's only two roads and one railway line in and out of the county, and those would also often be completely blocked for days or weeks at a time. In 1978 there was a particularly severe snowstorm and 3 people died after being trapped in their cars on the road heading south. They were only found days later, under meters of snow, by people out probing for buried cars with long metal poles. One local man was found alive - he was a "traveller in ladies underwear" who had used his samples to wrap himself up and keep warm, and was able to wind down his windows to collect snow to melt for drinking water. After that they installed snow gates on the road, which are closed and locked if severe weather is forecast, to prevent anything like that happening again. The coldest temperature ever recorded in the UK was at Altnaharra in Caithness in December 1995 - minus 27.2 degrees Centigrade.
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Post by helrunar on Oct 26, 2021 3:13:36 GMT
That's a great story about the traveller in ladies' underwear saving himself. What an ordeal.
Thanks for the harrowing tales of yore, Dr Strange!
cheers, Hel
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Post by helrunar on Oct 26, 2021 3:18:01 GMT
Absinthe seems to be undergoing a revival in at least some measure over here. I think it started somewhere between 10 and 15 years ago. But I am a real lightweight when it comes to booze of all descriptions. I do quite like this aquavit I learned to make from a friend; it involves seasoning a bottle of Absolut with various herbs and leaving it in a dark cupboard for a month or two.
Nice for the Yule festival.
H.
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