With all that’s going on at BOOK SA, we can’t remember exactly why we’re keeping Louis Greenberg’s liquor cabinet so well-stocked, but we’re committed to maintaining the high standards that we’ve set, because he is so dear to us.
Oh yes, that’s right, it’s all coming back now: Louis won our little competition held in honour of the Man Booker Longlist, which this year contains no South Africans, but from which, we hoped, an SA connection might be gleaned.
After strenuous research involving the world’s number one search engine, Louis took two stabs, both of which were more appropriately fragile than any others, and so he won the offered prize of booze.
(It didn’t hurt that, as a result of one of his flimsily-forged links, BOOK SA got into The Guardian’s Over-by-Over coverage of the cricket then going on at Edgebaston. See the full comment thread associated with the post.)
In conclusion, allow us to say, Cheers, Louis! – and may many further occasions for frittering away valuable office time come your way.
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August 18th, 2008 @09:39 #
That bottle looks half empty. Did you check the seal, Louis?
August 18th, 2008 @09:40 #
Nice shirt, by the way.
August 18th, 2008 @09:59 #
Happy to report that BOOK SA's roving reporter scored a focaccia and a coffee from the entertaining Mr Greenberg for the pleasure of handing over the SEALED bottle.
August 18th, 2008 @10:08 #
Darn - I thought I'd got away with this one and these pics had quietly slipped away over the weekend. It will take me the whole bottle to get rid of these images, but they will still be here in the morning.
Gladly the bottle was full, though I trust Liesl had a tipple at her launch that night.
August 18th, 2008 @10:11 #
PS - thanks Ben and Liesl and Book SA. I'd like also to thank my sponsors and my employers who lent me the computer and the people who sold me the shirt and the cafe that polished their marble table so nicely and everyone who made this such a sweet moment.
August 18th, 2008 @10:16 #
Jameson whiskey!
August 18th, 2008 @10:18 #
But has he invited us round to polish it off? Hell no!
August 18th, 2008 @10:24 #
Richard, Rustum - I will buy a whole new bottle to celebrate our eventual meeting.
August 18th, 2008 @10:36 #
Excellent! I think you'd better get the guest room ready, too. Then again, it's likely to be an all-nighter.
August 18th, 2008 @10:39 #
Rustum, Jameson's lurks at the outer limit of BOOK SA's budget. (And, c'mon, it's a fine malt de table.) The day we can afford Lagavulin, you'll hear about it - from the Isle of Islay, where I'll be drunkenly posting the news.
August 18th, 2008 @10:43 #
How did I miss this hysterical mating of cricket and literature (two
of my favourite things, along with whiskers on kittens)? How did I
live without Rustum's online repartee (to be honest, he was the reason this Luddite signed up)? How will I ever get any work done again? How can you tell I have a deadline? Pass me that bottle!
August 18th, 2008 @10:45 #
Oh, I thought Rustum's comment was an envious one. I rush to Ben's defence - it was me who chose it from all the options available. All these hoity toity Scotch malts blah blah leave me cold and with an epiglottis-ache. So, Rustum, you can blame me for having the taste of a, well, Baltimore police.
August 18th, 2008 @10:48 #
PS I once smelled the very seaweed in a glass of Ardbeg, but for my next round I had some Jim Beam (black, mind you, the fancy one).
August 18th, 2008 @11:20 #
Rustum is a single malt connoisseur of note, and I myself long ago succumbed to the salt-tang sway of the higher genera of the family. But I've never scoffed at malt de table (my own brand is Famous Grouse), and I've been known to mutter the praises of some of the better blends (like Dimple) after knocking back a few representative samples.
But one thing I've never learned is whether Rusutm is a highlander or a peat-bogger. What about it, Rustum: Glenmorangie or Laprhoaig?
Louis, Jim Beam is the correct choice among locally-available bourbons - unless you're prepared to seriously shell out. Don't even mention that cigarette-lighter fluid they call "Tenessee whiskey"!
August 18th, 2008 @12:20 #
Who is spreading these vicious rumours about my single malt connoisseurship!? I do not refuse a single malt, and neither do I not have favourite single malts, but my single malt predilections tend toward the populist, accessible ones. So Ben, I can't say, Glenmorangie or Laphroaig? No smoky peat notes nor marine tangs for me - it is straight up "The Glenlivet". As a nostalgist, it is all tied to a wet field somewhere in Rondebosch on a rainy night and an older, erm, person showing me more ways of the world, as well as, a few months later, the only single malt in Soviet style Ohio-state liqour store. But let me say that I will never, never ever ever refuse a glass of single malt.
Indeed Louis, it was an envious tone to my exclamation, like, woohoo, whisk[e]y! While I will not refuse Jameson, though, my malt de table tastes tend towards Scotch: Ballantine's, Johnny Walker, Famous Grouse, in that order. I think that malts de table have more romance to them than the upper echelons.
Ballantine's is the Kent of whiskies, though sans a famous micronite filter. One saw them in 70s, early 80s crime thrillers, but not readily on SA shelves. Ballantine's started appearing I think in the early noughties, cheaper generally than the other mid-table whiskies, but now, alas, the same price.
August 18th, 2008 @12:22 #
Hah hah, lighter fuel. Indeed, when I have to drink bourbon, it is Mr. Beam. Generally, I only like bourbon in an Old Fashioned and, if Canadian is not available, in my eggnog.
August 18th, 2008 @12:30 #
"Drie skepe moes my wegvoer
Na lande ver van hier
Maar daar's skimme op die vloer
En visioene in my bier
Ek weet ek was verkeerd gewees
My oë traan, my maag wil draai
My drome was nog vis nog vlees
Drie skepe het my hart verraai"
--- Koos Kombuis, "Onder in my whiskyglas"
August 18th, 2008 @12:33 #
Ek hoor waar jy vandaan kom, Koos.