Last night was the Tony Awards, which is longer on talent and shorter on self-congratulations than most award shows. When I watch awards shows with the moll, we have a drink or two. It was martinis for the Oscars. But last night I let Raymond Chandler and Robert Altman pick the cocktails.
Chandler’s description of a gimlet in The Long Goodbye is famous the world over:
“They don’t know how to make them here,” he said. “What they call a gimlet is just some lime or lemon juice and gin with a dash of sugar and bitters. A real gimlet is half gin and half Rose’s Lime Juice and nothing else. It beats martinis hollow.”
In the 1973 film, Robert Altman and Elliott Gould transform Marlowe into a more self-aware private dick for The Seventies. In the film version of The Long Goodbye, Marlowe orders a CC and ginger. Technically, this is a highball and not a cocktail—and should be in a different glass.
But let’s not split hairs. Both are simple to make and delicious to drink. And Raymond Chandler would never turn up his nose at that.
