Colonel Darby P. Nutter’s Gin and Julep

Colonel Darby P. Nutter’s Gin and Julep

6 oz Gin

5 oz Bourbon

2 oz tonic

4 generous pinches of quinine powder

15 crushed mint leaves

July 7th, 1880

Roger, it is with great celerity and insufferable fear that I write this message, for I fear it may be my last. While scything (well, not literally — my machete-wielding Pigmy guide Okonkwo was rather more involved with the brutish task) my way through some brush along the Gambian river, I made both an unfortunate acquaintance and epiphany. Okonwko had been rambling on at ghastly length about some rival tribal hoo-nilly and at times I had to overcome a rather staggering urge to remove my broach and fling it at him.

“Okonwko” I cried, “If you insist upon blathering like a Derbyshire hen, then I will have no choice but to set down my two beverages and strike you!”

I am normally not a man of such violent intemperance, Roger, but the heat assaulted my temper in volleys and the sweat was quite literally forming alluvial bunches in my moustache. As Shakespeare said, “nothing comes of a voyage undisturb’d,” or something arather, and savages soon surrounded us. Naturally I was not prepared to abandon my two libations, so rather than draw my sword and consequently lose any hope of sating my large appetite for drink, I decided to flee.

“Okonwko! Run my boy,” I cried, “We are beset by wicked onanists and Mau-Maus! I shall have to contact Governor Plumsbury at once with a request for reinforcments and replenishing of our beverages!”

Okonkwo, however, was already being dragged away, no doubt to some ghastly death. In my flight, a stray arrow caught my belt and my trousers fell to my ankles. Again, Roger, I was not ready to divest myself of liquid courage, so I proceeded rather indecently with the bunched khaki rubbing my bare ankles rather raw. In my fright I began soiling myself as I waded into the river. To avoid a deathly looking creature I spilled some of my gin into my julep. As I pondered the sheer madness of the situation, I took a sip of the new concoction — I always have possessed a scientific mind — and was delighted by the mix. I hope that you and Walter back in Khartoum may extract the same sublime pleasure I did whilst soiling myself under tribal assault in the Congo from this beverage.

 By Henry C. Woram