Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/2007/07/16/barretts_mixology.php
Monday, July 16, 2007
The Orange Blossom Shackle
Three parts Bourbon.
Two parts orange juice.
One part triple sec.
Mix with ice in a pitcher.
I landed three authoritative knocks on Szogyény-Marich Castle’s carved oak door. A clichéd valet soon presented his head. “Yes?” “Inspector István Molnár,” I said businesslike, and then, striking a more empathetic tone, “I’d only just heard.” He lead me through barely lit halls as I mentally reviewed the facts of the case. Fact one: a Szogyény-Marich family heirloom, a frail handkerchief that had been embroidered with a quasi-lewd joke about courtship—gone, likely purloined by a cold-blooded mastermind—or is “madman” the word I’m searching for? Fact two, no one had entered or left the castle since the objet d’art had gone missing. I found the Szogyény-Marichs and guests seated nervously in the drawing room. “Right,” I said, stroking the end of my comically outre Magyar moustache, “I’m going to conduct this case in a civilized manner. All present will agree to an interview or immediately become suspect. I’ll start with you, Count—let’s say, dining room, fifteen minutes.” I repaired there to rearrange the furniture and knick-knacks to give it a more interrogative feel. However, I spotted a kind of yellow beverage in a gleaming steel carafe. Dipping a finger, I found it delicious, and remembered a maxim my cirrhotic uncle had oft-repeated, “István,” he had said to me, bouncing me on one knee, “A little bit of the right stuff can really help you think.” I took that to heart, perhaps too much to heart, and I suppose the thief’s having gotten away scot-free is partially attributable to that action. I maintain, however, that this improbable Kentucky liquid must have been placed there by the handkerthief, as I had taken to calling him. “Sheer genius,” I was said to have mumbled as two helped me up to a bedroom to sleep it off, “The inexorable guile of the criminal mind.”