“Don’t be remorseful. It just confuses me.” Oh Inspector Jack Anderson & Lady Detective Phyrne Fisher we do love you.
Son Andrew recently posts a photo of ingredients for a mixed drink that takes him four stops to acquire. He asks for guesses as to what he is concocting, offering a free drink for the first correct answer.
I figure it probably has something to do with season three of the charming series Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries many of us are watching but what specifically would Phryne and Jack have been drinking? Andrew & Jenn are finished with the episodes, we have several to go.
Almost simultaneously Lewis and I guess Old Fashioned. Phryne was known to enjoy a hearty Old-Fashioned mixed to perfection by Mr. Butler. Nope, but we still get a free drink.
Then I look closer at the ingredients, two kinds of vermouth. Aha, it’s a Manhattan. Kat beats me to the guess (but she did spell it wrong). She has completed the series too. We’re both right, confirmed by Andrew and later the episode where Phryne and Jack have a Manhattan nightcap.
Manhattans and I have a long history. It is my first mixed drink. I am a freshman in college. My family has recently moved from Whitehall, Ohio where we live from fifth grade until I graduate. Dad’s job with the newly formed Department of Transportation investigating air plane crashes takes them to the DC area. No way I can get there from the cornfields of Oxford, Ohio where I attend Miami University and back for Thanksgiving break and so I find myself tagging along with dorm mate Sandy Mathison to her home in Cleveland.
Her parents own a Dairy Queen and she has her own horse. Another first for me on that trip. Riding a horse. It is harrowing invigorating. I do not fall off. I do not get kicked. Success. Probably has something to do with that Manhattan her aunt fixes me the night before.
We land at Sandy’s home shortly before dinner time. After dinner we head over to her aunt’s house within walking distance (good thing). “Show us how to drink,” Sandy commands. Her aunt, a real Phryne type free spirit, is delighted to oblige. Drinking proteges! She mixes. We drink. It is a happy combination. Many drinks later we stumble home. But upright we are. We can hold our liquor. We’ll take Manhattan.
