Cocktail Hour

After slaving away most of the day yesterday I decided to sit in the living room, have a cocktail and listen to some music.  I rummaged around in the record bin and found Nashville Skyline.  Then, feeling adventurous, I made myself a gimlet ...

Aye!

I used something called Ransom Old Tom gin, which is a light brown color and, according to the label, resembles what gin actually looked like in the 1800s.  Ransom being the name of the distillery and Old Tom being the name of the style of gin.  Here's a picture ...

I'm typically a Tanqueray guy, and gin's gin, by and large, and the more it smells like I just poured some of my grandmother's old perfume over some ice and started drinking it the better.  But but I must say Old Tom's range of botanicals was bracing.  Add the lime -- a squirt of juice and a wedge -- and, by God, that's a gimlet.

Aye!

And Nashville Skyline!  What an album.  I used to love playing Lay Lady Lay on my guitar before my left hand betrayed me, and that starts side one.  After that you listen to a bunch of other really good stuff and then, no matter how comfortable you are on the sofa, you have to get up and turn the record over.  Honestly -- I am not shitting you.

You sit back down and before you know it Bob is singing a duet with Johnny Cash.  Girl from the North Country.  Manomanoman.  Who doesn't like country music more than me?  And this album was widely considered the apex (or nadir) of Bob's flirtation with the boys from the south country.  It was all just so lovely.   And the second side was made all the lovelier by the second gimlet.

Aye!