An Hour of Glamour - The Summer Before the War

Did you love Major Pettigrew's Last Stand?  You did if you read it - so if you haven't, just go.  Go do that.  When you come back, I'll have a drink waiting for you in celebration of Helen Simonson's followup to that lovely novel.

Hour of Glamour

 

1.5 oz gin

.75 oz. Madeira
.25 oz Maraschino Liqueur
1 oz tonic
Cherry for garnish

Rinse a chilled rocks glass with the Maraschino Liquer.  Discard any excess.  Add ice.  Stir the gin, Madeira, and tonic with ice until cold.  Strain into the glass.  Garnish with cherry.

Ms. Simonson's next book, due in little more than a month, is another gorgeous tale set in England - this time just before the Great War.  When you're making a cocktail for a book - because you do that, too, right?  I mustn't be the only one?  But when you do, you hope that the author conveniently gives you a name for the drink within the book's pages.  

The Summer Before the War doesn't disappoint on this, or any, score.  In response to one cousin wanting to take another cousin down a peg, their Aunt Agatha is patient, explaining that the inflated sense of self that Daniel has developed since he'd been spending time with a friend from the aristocracy will soon be punctured because that's the way of things.  Why not, she insists, let him have his hour of glamour?  And if that isn't a perfect name for a cocktail, I don't know what is.  

Because Aunt Agatha usually enjoys a glass of Madeira in the evening, I began there.  It would be a compliment to gin, naturally, because there isn't a drink that says England more than gin.  Everything else adds to a cool sipper that's floral, earthy and herbaceous.  Cheers!