Saturday, June 18, 2011

"Prewar Green River"

The Chill (Ross Macdonald)
- Highlight Loc. 3257-65 | Added on Saturday, June 18, 2011, 03:17 PM

“How did it happen, Lieutenant?”

“He was cleaning his .32 automatic. He had a permit to tote it on his person—I helped him get it myself—because he used to carry large sums of money. He took the clip out all right but he must of forgot the shell that was in the chamber. It went off and shot him in the face.”

“Where?”

“Through the right eye.”

“I mean where did the accident occur?”

“In one of the bedrooms in his apartment. He kept the roof apartment in the Deloney building for his private use. More than once I drank with him up there. Prewar Green River, boy.” He slapped my knee, and noticed the full glass in my hand. “Drink up your drink.”

I knocked back about half of it. It wasn’t prewar Green River.



2 comments:

Tulkinghorn said...

Eat some Johnson soup and wash it down with Green River while listening to Charlie Parker and you'll be a real American -- no passport needed.
Wonderful

David Chute said...

Doing a little detective work of my own I came across the web site linked above, which seems to be saying that a revived, traditional-method version of Green River can be purchased. The forum at StraightBourbon.com [http://www.straightbourbon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11539] seems to say otherwise -- basically that "post-war Green River" was the brand in name only, a crappy blend, and that it's now defunct. If true, we're tiptoeing toward something like this: http://www.whiskymag.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=10437

Watch this space.