Greetings of the season to my Three Devoted Readers and everyone else! Before we put A Literary Cocktail to bed for the year, a few words, and a brief introduction. My thanks and affection to all who made this year so memorable:

My family at The Hell Hole –

Moto. You put up with so much from us, and all you demand is we keep doing it. We owe you a great debt and it will take years of making you miserable for us to repay it.

Uncle Billy. You sweet darling cold-blooded

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About now, some people who might be reading this blog (not my Three Devoted Readers, they know me better) might be thinking to themselves, “Well, Irene certainly knows her booze, but does she actually read?” Indeed, I do! Amazing, but true. What I don’t do is write well-crafted and insightful book reviews, anymore than I write well-crafted and insightful cocktail reviews. I leave that for others. I just chat about both because both bring me pleasure. And so onward…

I don’t know...

I’m feeling a bit stuck between an Aunt and an Aberdeen terrier myself these days. Life is never at a standstill and it seems like it’s one gosh darned thing after another at Chez Wilde. Always a responsible imbiber, I never tipple until the obligations of the day have been met, which has been pushing the cocktail hour later and later into the evening lately – no wonder some people end up drinking their breakfast – it’s the cocktail from the night before! Finding the right balance of homework,...

I fear I need to begin by begging the indulgence of my three devoted readers. This week’s thoughts started off in one direction, and then life conspired to pull them in another, until finally it took from me my capacity to think at all (which in all probability is a short-term affliction). These things happen, and as my self-imposed deadline approaches for this week’s contribution, I am struggling to weave the various strands of my thoughts as they stood at the time into a coherent whole.
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I explained this to Jeeves and he said the same thing had bothered Hamlet.

The world can, at times, be a beastly place. I’m sure it has always possessed this tendency, yet in our modern times it seems particularly set on bedeviling simple people like myself. I don’t ask much of the world – a good book, a cold martini, occasional moments of good company among intelligent, cultured, good-humored people, every so often a meal prepared by someone else’s hand with thought and care, and,...