Whisky Love Quotes

Maybe there is no Heaven. Or maybe this is all pure gibberish—a product of the demented imagination of a lazy drunken hillbilly with a heart full of hate who has found a way to live out where the real winds blow—to sleep late, have fun, get wild, drink whisky, and drive fast on empty streets with nothing in mind except falling in love and not getting arrested . . . Res ipsa loquitur. Let the good times roll.

Girls like her, my grandfather once warned me, girls like her turn into women with eyes like bullet holes and mouths made of knives. They are always restless. They are always hungry. They are bad news. They will drink you down like a shot of whisky. Falling in love with them is like falling down a flight of stairs. What no one told me, with all those warnings, is that even after you’ve fallen, even after you know how painful it is, you’d still get in line to do it again.

All worries are less with wine.

If you want to know what's in motherhood for you, as a woman, then - in truth - it's nothing you couldn't get from, say, reading the 100 greatest books in human history; learning a foreign language well enough to argue in it; climbing hills; loving recklessly; sitting quietly, alone, in the dawn; drinking whisky with revolutionaries; learning to do close-hand magic; swimming in a river in winter; growing foxgloves, peas and roses; calling your mum; singing while you walk; being polite; and always, always helping strangers. No one has ever claimed for a moment that childless men have missed out on a vital aspect of their existence, and were the poorer, and crippled by it.

live out where the real winds blow—to sleep late, have fun, get wild, drink whisky, and drive fast on empty streets with nothing in mind except falling in love and not getting arrested . . . Res ipsa loquitur. Let the good times roll.

For Jenn At 12 years old I started bleeding with the moon and beating up boys who dreamed of becoming astronauts. I fought with my knuckles white as stars, and left bruises the shape of Salem. There are things we know by heart, and things we don't. At 13 my friend Jen tried to teach me how to blow rings of smoke. I'd watch the nicotine rising from her lips like halos, but I could never make dying beautiful. The sky didn't fill with colors the night I convinced myself veins are kite strings you can only cut free. I suppose I love this life, in spite of my clenched fist. I open my palm and my lifelines look like branches from an Aspen tree, and there are songbirds perched on the tips of my fingers, and I wonder if Beethoven held his breath the first time his fingers touched the keys the same way a soldier holds his breath the first time his finger clicks the trigger. We all have different reasons for forgetting to breathe. But my lungs remember the day my mother took my hand and placed it on her belly and told me the symphony beneath was my baby sister's heartbeat. And I knew life would tremble like the first tear on a prison guard's hardened cheek, like a prayer on a dying man's lips, like a vet holding a full bottle of whisky like an empty gun in a war zone… just take me just take me Sometimes the scales themselves weigh far too much, the heaviness of forever balancing blue sky with red blood. We were all born on days when too many people died in terrible ways, but you still have to call it a birthday. You still have to fall for the prettiest girl on the playground at recess and hope she knows you can hit a baseball further than any boy in the whole third grade and I've been running for home through the windpipe of a man who sings while his hands playing washboard with a spoon on a street corner in New Orleans where every boarded up window is still painted with the words We're Coming Back like a promise to the ocean that we will always keep moving towards the music, the way Basquait slept in a cardboard box to be closer to the rain. Beauty, catch me on your tongue. Thunder, clap us open. The pupils in our eyes were not born to hide beneath their desks. Tonight lay us down to rest in the Arizona desert, then wake us washing the feet of pregnant women who climbed across the border with their bellies aimed towards the sun. I know a thousand things louder than a soldier's gun. I know the heartbeat of his mother. Don't cover your ears, Love. Don't cover your ears, Life. There is a boy writing poems in Central Park and as he writes he moves and his bones become the bars of Mandela's jail cell stretching apart, and there are men playing chess in the December cold who can't tell if the breath rising from the board is their opponents or their own, and there's a woman on the stairwell of the subway swearing she can hear Niagara Falls from her rooftop in Brooklyn, and I'm remembering how Niagara Falls is a city overrun with strip malls and traffic and vendors and one incredibly brave river that makes it all worth it. Ya'll, I know this world is far from perfect. I am not the type to mistake a streetlight for the moon. I know our wounds are deep as the Atlantic. But every ocean has a shoreline and every shoreline has a tide that is constantly returning to wake the songbirds in our hands, to wake the music in our bones, to place one fearless kiss on the mouth of that brave river that has to run through the center of our hearts to find its way home.

Hunger gives flavour to the food.

The problem with heartbreak is that nobody can help you when you're heartbroken. Nobody and nothing. Not the films you watch alone desperately searching for a character who feels the way you do, not the glasses or bottles of whisky you keep by your bed and certainly not Instagram.

Some people when they see cheese, chocolate or cake they don't think of calories.

I KNEW IT WAS OVER when tonight you couldn't make the phone ring when you used to make the sun rise when trees used to throw themselves in front of you to be paper for love letters that was how i knew i had to do it swaddle the kids we never had against january's cold slice bundle them in winter clothes they never needed so i could drop them off at my mom's even though she lives on the other side of the country and at this late west coast hour is assuredly east coast sleeping peacefully her house was lit like a candle the way homes should be warm and golden and home and the kids ran in and jumped at the bichon frise named lucky that she never had they hugged the dog it wriggled and the kids were happy yours and mine the ones we never had and my mom was grand maternal, which is to say, with style that only comes when you've seen enough to know grace like when to pretend it's christmas or a birthday so she lit her voice with tiny lights and pretended she didn't see me crying as i drove away to the hotel connected to the bar where i ordered the cheapest whisky they had just because it shares your first name because they don't make a whisky called baby and i only thought what i got was what i ordered i toasted the hangover inevitable as sun that used to rise in your name i toasted the carnivals we never went to and the things you never won for me the ferris wheels we never kissed on and all the dreams between us that sat there like balloons on a carney's board waiting to explode with passion but slowly deflated hung slave under the pin- prick of a tack hung heads down like lovers when it doesn't work, like me at last call after too many cheap too many sweet too much whisky makes me sick, like the smell of cheap, like the smell of the dead like the cheap, dead flowers you never sent that i never threw out of the window of a car i never really owned

Nights without work I spent with whisky and books.

She had the whisky licking, skinny dipping smile.

Horizons, cheap whisky straight from the bottle and your hands in mine.

She wished it were evening now, wished for the great relief of the calendar inking itself out, of day done and night coming, of ice cubes knocking about in a glass beneath the whisky spilling in, that fine brown affirmation of need.

I have rooted myself into this quiet place where I don’t need much to get by. I need my visions. I need my books. I need new thoughts and lessons, from older souls, bars, whisky, libraries; different ones in different towns. I need my music. I need my songs. I need the safety of somewhere to rest my head at night, when my eyes get heavy. And I need space. Lots of space. To run, and sing, and change around in any way I please—outer or inner—and I need to love. I need the space to love ideas and thoughts; creations and people—anywhere I can find—and I need the peace of mind to understand it.

I feel like girls who drink whisky tell good stories.

Some nights you drink tea, some nights you drink whisky.

Girls like her, my grandfather once warned me, girls like her turn into women with eyes like bullet holes and mouths made of knives. They are always restless. They are always hungry. They are bad news. They will drink you down like a shot of whisky. Falling in love with them is like falling down a flight of stairs.

The conspicuous fault of the Jeffersonian Party, like the personal fault of Senator Trowbridge, was that it represented integrity and reason, in a year when the electorate hungered for frisky emotions, for the peppery sensations associated, usually, not with monetary systems and taxation rates but with baptism by immersion in the creek, young love under the elms, straight whisky, angelic orchestras heard soaring down from the full moon, fear of death when an automobile teeters above a canyon, thirst in a desert and quenching it with spring water—all the primitive sensations which they thought they found in the screaming of Buzz Windrip.

But Siegfried held up a restraining hand. “Just one moment,” he slurred. “The windscreen is very dirty. I’ll give it a rub for you.” The ladies watched him silently as he weaved round to the back of the car and began to rummage in the boot. The love light had died from their eyes. I don’t know why he took the trouble; possibly it was because, through the whisky mists, he felt he must re-establish himself as a competent and helpful member of the party. But the effort fell flat; the effect was entirely spoiled. He was polishing the glass with a dead hen.

To her own heart, which was shaped exactly like a valentine, there came a winglike palpitation, a delicate exigency, and all the fragrance of all the flowery springtime love affairs that ever were seemed waiting for them in the whisky bottle. To mingle their pain their handshake had promised them, was to produce a separate entity, like a child that could shift for itself, and they scrambled hastily toward this profound and pastoral experience.

The Surly One 1 When true love broke my heart in half, I took the whisky from the shelf, And told my neighbors when to laugh. I keep a dog, and bark myself. 2 Ghost cries out to ghost – But who’s afraid of that? I fear those shadows most That start from my own feet.

Girls like her, my grandfather once warned me, girls like her turn into women with eyes like bullet holes and mouths made of knives. They are always restless. They are always hungry. They are bad news. They will drink you down like a shot of whisky. Falling in love with them is like falling down a flight of stairs. What no one told me, with all those warnings, is that even after you’ve fallen, even after you know how painful it is, you’d still get in line to do it again. A girl like that, Grandad said, perfumes herself with ozone and metal filings. She wears trouble like a crown. If she ever falls in love, she’ll fall like a comet, burning the sky as she goes. She was the epic crush of my childhood. She was the tragedy that made me look inside myself and see my corrupt heart. She was my sin and my salvation, come back from the grave to change me forever. Again. Back then, when she sat on my bed and told me she loved me, I wanted her as much as I have ever wanted anything. There are no words for how much I will miss her, but I try to kiss her so that she’ll know. I try to kiss her to tell her the whole story of my love, the way I dreamed of her when she was dead, the way that every other girl seemed like a mirror that showed me her face. The way my skin ached for her. The way that kissing her made me feel like I was drowning and like I was being saved all at the same time. I hope she can taste all that, bittersweet, on my tongue.

You have to try everything, for consumerist man is haunted by the fear of 'missing' something, some form of enjoyment or other. You never know whether a particular encounter, a particular experience (Christmas in the Canaries, eel in whisky, the Prado, LSD, Japanese-style love-making) will not elicit some 'sensation'. It is no longer desire, or even 'taste', or a specific inclination that are at stake, but a generalized curiosity, driven by a vague sense of unease - it is the 'fun morality' or the imperative to enjoy oneself, to exploit to the full one's potential for thrills pleasure or gratification.

Can I ask you something?" asks Will, after a while. The man sips his whisky instead of answering. Will asks the question anyway. "Have you ever been in love?" The man places his glass down and stares at Will, steel-eyed. The expected reaction, "Once," he responds , the word just a croak from the back of his throat. Will nods. "It's always just once, isn't it? The rest..they're just echoes

He was generally aware that he had been blessed in her beauty; even in her usual homespun, knee-deep in mud from her garden, or stained and fierce with the blood of her calling, the curve of her bones spoke to his own marrow, and those whisky eyes could make him drunk with a glance. Besides, the mad collieshangie of her hair made him laugh.

I remember Devo were playing at the Whisky and they came to our show at the STarwood. I asked them why and they said, "We love Dokken because you're the epitome of what we don't want to be." I didn't know they wore saucers on their heads at that point.

I'm looking for something and I don't quite know what it is. But I know that it's very important for me to know it, and if I did it would make all the difference. Perhaps the nuns know it; when I'm with them I feel that they hold a secret which they will not share with me. I don't know why it came into my head that if I saw this Manchu woman I should have an inkling of what I am looking for. Perhaps she would tell me if she could." "What makes you think she knows it?" Kitty gave him a sidelong glance, but did not answer. Instead she asked him a question. "Do you know it?" He smiled and shrugged his shoulders. "Tao. Some of us look for the Way in opium and some in God, some of us in whisky and some in love. It is all the same Way and it leads nowhither.

He tasted of whisky and his skin was rough where he hadn’t shaved, but Mirabelle kissed him back.

My love she's handsome, My love she's bony: She's like good whisky When it is new; But when 'tis old And growing cold It fades and dies like The mountain dew.

Mr. Ankerson, however, was well provided for already. He had ordered a bottle of whisky for himself and was quietly enjoying a one-man orgy in the corner.

Some of us look for the Way in opium and some in God, some of us in whisky and some in love. It is all the same Way and it leads nowhither.

Also I wanted the whisky for itself, because I loved the taste of it and because, being as happy as I could be, it made me feel even better.

The Scottish are the only ones who can technically spell whiskey as “whisky.” They claim more vowels wastes good drinking time, and I wish I could have realized that then, because that’s exactly what I was doing — wasting time. Letting days and weeks and months of incredible, soul-shattering love pass me by because I thought I knew the right way to spell out the path of my life.

How could he say, look, I've tried not to fancy you since you first took your coat off in this office. I try not to give names to what I feel for you, because I already know it's too much, and I want peace from the shit that love brings in its wake. I want to be alone, and unburdened, and free. But I don't want you to be with anyone else. I don't want some other bastard to persuade you into a second marriage. I like knowing the possibility's there, for us to, maybe . . . Except, it'll go wrong, of course, because it always goes wrong, because if I were the type for permanence, I'd already be married. And when it goes wrong, I'll lose you for good, and this thing we've built together, which is literally the only good part of my life, my vocation, my pride, my greatest achievement, will be forever fucked, because I won't find anyone I enjoy running things with, the way I enjoy running them with you, and everything afterward will be tainted by the memory of you. If only she could come inside his head and see what was there, Strike thought, she'd understand that she occupied a unique place in his thoughts and in his affections. He felt he owed her that information, but was afraid that saying it might move this conversation into territory from which it would be difficult to retreat. But from second to second, sitting here, now with more than half a bottle of neat whisky inside him, a different spirit seemed to move inside him, asking himself for the first time whether determined solitude was what he really wanted, for evermore.

The two great "civilizers" after all, were whisky and gunpowder, and from the hour we accepted these we had in reality sold our birthright, and all unconsciously consented to our own ruin. Once we had departed from the broad democracy and pure idealism of our prime, and had undertaken to enter upon the world’s game of competition, our rudder was unshipped, our compass lost, and the whirlwind and tempest of materialism and love of conquest tossed us to and fro like leaves in wind. Ohiyesa

Looking at her over my whisky I thought how odd it was that felt no desire for her at all. It was as if quite suddenly after all the promiscuous years I had grown up. My passion for Sarah had killed simple lust for ever. Never again would I be able to enjoy a woman without love.

Islay whisky starts as hot as the devil's whisper... but then the flavors come through, and it might taste of cinnamon, or peat, or honeycomb fresh from the hive. It could taste of a long ago walk on a winter's eve... or a kiss you once stole from your sweetheart in the hayloft. Whisky is yesterday's rain, distilled with barley into a vapor that rises like a will-o'-the-wisp, then set to bide its time in casks of good oak." His voice had turned as soft as a curl of smoke. "Someday we'll have a whisky, you and I. We'll toast health to our friends and peace to our foes... and we'll drink to the loves lost to time's perishing, as well as those yet to come.

To make matters worse," Luke continued, "there was an accident." Her eyes widened. "What kind of accident?" "A cask of whisky slipped from the hoisting gear, broke on the roof of a transit shed, and poured all over MacRae. He's ready to murder someone - which is why I brought him up here to you." Despite her concern, Merritt let out a snort of laughter. "Luke Marsden, are you planning to hide behind my skirts while I confront the big, mean Scotsman?" "Absolutely," he said without hesitation. "You like them big and mean.” Her brows lifted. "What in heaven's name are you talking about?" "You love soothing difficult people. You're the human equivalent of table syrup." Amused, Merritt leaned her chin on her hand. "Show him in, then, and I'll start pouring." It wasn't that she loved soothing difficult people. But she definitely liked to smooth things over when she could. As the oldest of six children, she'd always been the one to settle quarrels among her brothers and sisters, or come up with indoor games on rainy days. More than once, she'd orchestrated midnight raids on the kitchen pantry or told them stories when they'd sneaked to her room after bedtime.

She came naked behind him as the soft melancholy yearning of the song filled the dark. Her hand stroked his hair, gathered it tight at the nape of his neck. She swayed, and he felt her press against his back, her breasts soft now, yielding and warm through his shirt, her breath tickling his ear. Her hand rested on his shoulder briefly, then slid down inside his shirt, fingers cool on his chest. He could feel the warm hard metal of her ring on his skin, and felt a surge of possession that pulsed through him like a gulp of whisky, a heat suffusing his flesh. He ached to turn and take hold of her, but pushed the urge down, heightening anticipation. He bent his head closer to the strings, and sang until all thought left him and there was nothing left but his body and hers. He could not have said when her hand closed over his on the frets, and he rose and turned to her, still filled with the music and his love, soft and strong and pure in the dark.

What is the sea for the man who has loved and left her? She is fire-water, whisky, rum, a roric flame. She is a green-eyed witch; she speaks in tongues. Her coral rings are forged of skeletons; her white shoulders glisten with the dust of powdered bones. She is memory, the number of numbers, the eye of the world, the mirror of the sea. What is the ocean for the sailor who has loved and left her? The one lover who dissolves the night. A bottomless glass of moonshine. And sailors? All sea-talkers. The sons of mermen.

She said that even though I was a bastard to her, she still loved me. That I’d know one day what I’d given up, that I’d never be happy, deep down, without her. That—’ Strike and Robin had once before sat in this office, after dark and full of whisky, and he’d come dangerously close to crossing the line between friend and lover. He’d felt then the fatalistic daring of the trapeze artist, preparing to swing out into the spotlight with only black air beneath him, and he felt the same now. ‘—she knew I was in love with you.

It would be boring to say how much we laughed. He lay in his bed, and told stories, and would go quiet - asleep? - and then he would giggle, and then I would giggle, and he would say, 'You put the phone down,' and I would say, 'No, you put the phone down.' At one point, he staggered in for a piss, three feet from where I lay - a thunderous unloading of whisky, Guinness and gin. 'You put the phone down,' he said. 'No - you put the phone down.' 'Love you, babe.' He flushed, and went back to bed We were like two kids on a camping holiday.

At this point I came across one of the vending machines that only Japan has. I have to admit that I love the whimsical items sold in such appliances, like all sorts of junk food, beer cans, whisky bottles and even underwear. This particular machine sold both whisky and underwear, which truly is a bizarre combination, or maybe not, considering all the underwear were female panties. It was therefore my theory that older men would come by and buy the whisky, and then when they were drunk and young women passed by, the men would then offer them panties as gifts for sexual favours. Ya, it all made perfect sense to me.

She had seen Southern men, soft voiced and dangerous in the days before the war, reckless and hard in the last despairing days of the fighting. But in the faces of the two men who stared at each other across the candle flame so short a while ago there had been something that was different, something that heartened her but frightened her — fury which could find no words, determination which would stop at nothing. For the first time, she felt a kinship with the people about her, felt one with them in their fears, their bitterness, their determination. No, it wasn’t to be borne! The South was too beautiful a place to be let go without a struggle, too loved to be trampled by Yankees who hated Southerners enough to enjoy grinding them into the dirt, too dear a homeland to be turned over to ignorant people drunk with whisky and freedom. As she thought of Tony’s sudden entrance and swift exit, she felt herself akin to him, for she remembered the old story how her father had left Ireland, left hastily and by night, after a murder which was no murder to him or to his family. Gerald’s blood was in her, violent blood. She remembered her hot joy in shooting the marauding Yankee. Violent blood was in them all, perilously close to the surface, lurking just beneath the kindly courteous exteriors. All of them, all the men she knew, even the drowsy-eyed Ashley and fidgety old Frank, were like that underneath — murderous, violent if the need arose. Even Rhett, conscienceless scamp that he was, had killed a man for being “uppity to a lady.

The rain beat against the windows and against the tin roof of the hotel. It came down in hissing roars, then in whispers, then in loud shishes like sandpaper rubbed against wood. She drank the second glassful, climbed off the bed and began undressing, and then we were together, the cheap naked bulb still blazing down on the bed. Thinking back, I remember the stupidest things; the way there was a taut crease just above her hips, in the small of her back. The way she smelled like a baby's breath, a sweet barely there smell that retreated and retreated, so that no matter how close you got to it you weren't sure it was there. The brown speckles in the lavender-gray eyes, floating very close to the surface when I kissed her, the eyes wide open and aware. But not caring. The eyes of a gourmet offered a stale chunk of bread, using it of necessity but not tasting it any more than necessary. I remember getting up and coming back to her, and of throwing a shoe at the light bulb, later, when the whisky was gone. I remember the smell of rain-darkness in the room and her telling me I'd cut my feet on the light-bulb glass on the floor. And how she said I was no better than a tramp myself, that I made love to the cadence of the raingusts on the roof, and it was true I was doing just that, but it seemed the natural thing then. And I felt so marvelously clean and soaped and so in tune with the whole damned universe that I had the feeling I could have clouded up and rained and lightninged myself, and blown that cheese-colored room to smithereens.

Richard, his face red with anger over his too-yellow, too-tight shirt, held a glass of whisky between two hands, turning it round and round, looking down into it. “Thanks,” he said at last, “I will.” He spoke with such a stubborn confidence in the quality of what he was going to offer his son, that Anna and Molly again raised their eyebrows at each other, conveying that the whole conversation had been wasted, as usual. Richard intercepted this glance, and said: “You two are so extraordinarily naïve.” “About business?” said Molly, with her loud jolly laugh. “About big business,” said Anna quietly, amused, who had been surprised, during her conversations with Richard, to discover the extent of his power. This had not caused his image to enlarge, for her; rather he had seemed to shrink, against a background of international money. And she had loved Molly the more for her total lack of respect for this man who had been her husband, and who was in fact one of the financial powers of the country.

She let the car idle for a minute before easing it out of its tight parking spot. Heading in the same direction as Nick, she took the one-way side street toward Lake Shore Drive and caught up with him at a stop sign. She saw him glance at his rearview mirror, spotting her behind him. A few seconds later, her cell phone rang. When she answered, his whisky-rich voice came through the car’s speakers. “So I’ve been thinking about your question. My character has decided he doesn’t want to see other people.” “What made you change your mind? Let me guess—the Maserati.” He chuckled. “Our cover story is that my character has been smitten from the moment he met you. He’s not about to let another man get anywhere near you.” “Your character sounds a little possessive. Is this something my character should be worried about?” They came to a stop at the light that would take them onto the Drive. Nick’s voice was low, even smoother than the car’s engine. “I think your character secretly likes it. You’ve been dating boring, uptight guys for too long. You’ve been looking for something different.” Jordan looked sharply at the SUV in front of her. “I think your character presumes too much.” His eyes caught hers in the rearview mirror. “Does he?” The light turned green, and they drove off in opposite directions.

You... you were telling me about your diet?" "Well, mostly I was raised on milk, potatoes, dulse, fish-" "I beg your pardon, did you say 'dulse'? What is that, exactly?" "A kind of seaweed," MacRae said. "As a lad, it was my job to go out at low tide before supper and cut handfuls of it from the rocks on shore." He opened a cupboard to view a small store of cooking supplies and utensils. "It goes in soup, or you can eat it raw." He glanced at her over his shoulder, amusement touching his lips as he saw her expression. "Seaweed is the secret to good health?" Merritt asked dubiously. "No, milady, that would be whisky. My men and I take a wee dram every day." Seeing her perplexed expression, her continued, "Whisky is the water of life. It warms the blood, keeps the spirits calm, and the heart strong." "I wish I liked whisky, but I'm afraid it's not to my taste." MacRae looked appalled. "Was it Scotch whisky?" "I'm not sure," she said. "Whatever it was, it set my tongue on fire." "It was no' Scotch, then, but rotgut. Islay whisky starts as hot as the devil's whisper... but then the flavors come through, and it might taste of cinnamon, or peat, or honeycomb fresh from the hive. It could taste of a long-ago walk on a winter's eve... or a kiss you once stole from your sweetheart in the hayloft. Whisky is yesterday's rain, distilled with barley into a vapor that rises like a will-o'-the-wisp, then set to bide its time in casks of good oak." His voice had turned as soft as a curl of smoke. "Someday we'll have a whisky, you and I. We'll toast health to our friends and peace to our foes... and we'll drink to the loves lost to time's perishing, as well as those yet to come.

He poured a splash of liquid into a second cup. “Come in and warm yerself by the fire.” Ariana walked deeper into the room, toward the glow of the hearth. It’s heat enveloped her skin and eased away the chill with such expediency, she almost sighed. Connor appeared beside her with a metal cup extended. “I canna sleep often myself.” She closed her fingers around the cool surface and glanced at the dark liquid within. A sharp scent hit her nostrils. “Whisky,” Connor said. He was perfection in the firelight. Shadows etched his jaw while the light softened his face, his lips. The powerful lines of his chest were visible at the neck of his leine, as well as a dark peppering of small curling black hairs. “Whisky,” Ariana said with a forced stare at the cup instead of him. “Of course. I drink this all the time.” “Aye, I knew that about ye. When I first saw ye, I thought, ‘Now there’s a lass who can handle her whisky.’” Connor winked at her with disarming playfulness. “It’ll do ye some good. Take off the chill and settle yer thoughts.” “Why do you assume my thoughts are unsettled?” she asked. He took a swallow from his cup. “Because sleep comes easily to those without weight on their minds.” Ariana took a careful sip from her own cup, the way she’d seen men at the card tables drink. The liquid burned like sin down her throat and caught in her chest. She gritted her teeth and swallowed hard several times to keep from sputtering. Though she’d hoped to keep her reaction discreet, the grin on Connor’s face told her he saw through her guise. “It’s good.” Her voice came out in a croak and Connor laughed. It was a warm, rich sound and she found it terribly pleasing. His eyes crinkled. “Now that we’ve discovered yer love of whisky, why dinna ye tell me what’s got yer thoughts heavy?

He was so very gentle, despite his power and size, his fingertips sliding over her in light, beguiling patterns. His focus on her, his awareness of every sound, pulse, shiver, was absolute. His low voice tickled her ear as he murmured how beautiful she was, how good she felt, how hard she made him... and all the while, the thick shaft kept sinking deeper and deeper. By the time he filled her completely, she was feverish with need. A little sob of anticipation escaped her as he began to move. But every thrust was long and agonizingly slow, withholding the last bit of stimulation she needed. He held her more closely now, his weight on her from pelvis to breasts, while his hips rolled and circled, drawing up new surges of feeling. His mouth lowered to one of her breasts, licking and gently gnawing at the erect nipple. Squirming in frustration, she pushed her hips upward, but he pulled back reflexively. "No, love. I could hurt you." "You won't. Please... Keir..." "Please what?" "I need more." His laugh, a smolder of a sound, could have come from the devil himself. "I dinna think you can take more than this, darlin'." "I can." She strained against him. "This deep?" he asked, reaching places in her that had never been touched before. She shook at the pleasure of it. "Oh, God. Yes." His hands grasped her hips, keeping them angled firmly upward as he pumped in a steady rhythm. Slow in... slow out... "Faster," she said desperately. "No' yet," he whispered. "Please," she begged. His low, dark voice curled in her ear. "There's a saying we have about whisky: Slow fire makes sweet malt." She whimpered as he rolled his hips gently, his hardness caressing everywhere inside. The deliberate pace didn't alter, no matter how she tried to drive herself harder onto the rigid length of him. Every time she began to plead for more, his mouth came to hers in another one of those obliterating kisses. None of this was what she'd expected. Her husband had been a considerate lover, doing everything she liked and giving her exactly what she wanted. Keir, however, was doing the exact opposite. He delighted in tormenting her until she didn't recognize herself in the frantic creature she'd become. He was absolutely wicked, shameless, making love to her in ways that felt unimaginably good, always holding satisfaction just out of reach. "You give me so much pleasure, darlin'... more than a body can stand. The way you hold me so tight inside... like that... I can feel you pulling at me. Your wee, hungry body wants me deeper, aye? Put your hands on me... anywhere... ah, how I love your sweet touch...

Dear Jon, A real Dear Jon let­ter, how per­fect is that?! Who knew you’d get dumped twice in the same amount of months. See, I’m one para­graph in and I’ve al­ready fucked this. I’m writ­ing this be­cause I can’t say any of this to you face-to-face. I’ve spent the last few months ques­tion­ing a lot of my friend­ships and won­der­ing what their pur­pose is, if not to work through big emo­tional things to­gether. But I now re­al­ize: I don’t want that. And I know you’ve all been there for me in other ways. Maybe not in the lit­eral sense, but I know you all would have done any­thing to fix me other than lis­ten­ing to me talk and al­low­ing me to be sad with­out so­lu­tions. And now I am writ­ing this let­ter rather than pick­ing up the phone and talk­ing to you be­cause, de­spite every thing I know, I just don’t want to, and I don’t think you want me to ei­ther. I lost my mind when Jen broke up with me. I’m pretty sure it’s been the sub­ject of a few of your What­sApp con­ver­sa­tions and more power to you, be­cause I would need to vent about me if I’d been friends with me for the last six months. I don’t want it to have been in vain, and I wanted to tell you what I’ve learnt. If you do a high-fat, high-pro­tein, low-carb diet and join a gym, it will be a good dis­trac­tion for a while and you will lose fat and gain mus­cle, but you will run out of steam and eat nor­mally again and put all the weight back on. So maybe don’t bother. Drunk­en­ness is an­other idea. I was in black­out for most of the first two months and I think that’s fine, it got me through the evenings (and the oc­ca­sional af­ter­noon). You’ll have to do a lot of it on your own, though, be­cause no one is free to meet up any more. I think that’s fine for a bit. It was for me un­til some­one walked past me drink­ing from a whisky minia­ture while I waited for a night bus, put five quid in my hand and told me to keep warm. You’re the only per­son I’ve ever told this story. None of your mates will be ex­cited that you’re sin­gle again. I’m prob­a­bly your only sin­gle mate and even I’m not that ex­cited. Gen­er­ally the ex­pe­ri­ence of be­ing sin­gle at thirty-five will feel dif­fer­ent to any other time you’ve been sin­gle and that’s no bad thing. When your ex moves on, you might be­come ob­sessed with the bloke in a way that is al­most sex­ual. Don’t worry, you don’t want to fuck him, even though it will feel a bit like you do some­times. If you open up to me or one of the other boys, it will feel good in the mo­ment and then you’ll get an emo­tional hang­over the next day. You’ll wish you could take it all back. You may even feel like we’ve en­joyed see­ing you so low. Or that we feel smug be­cause we’re win­ning at some­thing and you’re los­ing. Re­member that none of us feel that. You may be­come ob­sessed with work­ing out why ex­actly she broke up with you and you are likely to go fully, fully nuts in your bid to find a sat­is­fy­ing an­swer. I can save you a lot of time by let­ting you know that you may well never work it out. And even if you did work it out, what’s the pur­pose of it? Soon enough, some girl is go­ing to be crazy about you for some un­de­fin­able rea­son and you’re not go­ing to be in­ter­ested in her for some un­de­fin­able rea­son. It’s all so ran­dom and un­fair – the peo­ple we want to be with don’t want to be with us and the peo­ple who want to be with us are not the peo­ple we want to be with. Re­ally, the thing that’s go­ing to hurt a lot is the fact that some­one doesn’t want to be with you any more. Feel­ing the ab­sence of some­one’s com­pany and the ab­sence of their love are two dif­fer­ent things. I wish I’d known that ear­lier. I wish I’d known that it isn’t any­body’s job to stay in a re­la­tion­ship they don’t want to be in just so some­one else doesn’t feel bad about them­selves. Any­way. That’s all. You’re go­ing to be okay, mate. Andy

Harry,” she said, her voice a little thick with the whisky. “You found the way, didn’t you?” What’s so wonderful about it? I thought. Dogs do.

Whisky was made to make you realize the hate you can have for something you strongly loved once. But karma never disappointed me, that's why I keep drinking it.

Sniff, swill, sip 329 words Leading whisky expert Charles MacLean on the underrated art of downing a good Scotch. USE ALL YOUR SENSES We all love a splash of golden liquor now and then, but the fine art of appreciating whisky requires a heightening of the senses. 'Nosing' whisky, a technique employed by blenders, is called sensory evaluation or analeptic assessment. Prior to sipping, examine its colour and 'tears', which are the reams left behind on the glass after you swirl it. Even our sense of hearing can help us judge the whisky; a full bottle should open with a happy little pluck of the cap. APPRECIATE A GOOD MALT Appreciation and enjoyment are two dimensions of downing a stiff one. Identify how you like your whisky (with ice, soda or water) and stick with it. Getting sloshed on blended whisky is all very good, but you will need single malt and an understanding of three simple things to truly cherish your drink. A squat glass with a bulb at the bottom releases the full burst of its aroma when swilled. A narrow rim is an added advantage. Instead of topping the drink with ice, which dilutes the aroma, go for water. NIBBLE, DON'T GOBBLE Small bites pair best with your whisky. It excites the palate minimally, letting you detect the characteristics of the whisky through contrast. If you're not a big fan of food and whisky pairing, skip it. OLD IS GOLD While old whiskies are not necessarily better, it's a known fact that most of the finer whiskies are well-aged. I would consider whiskies that are anywhere between 18 and 50 years as old, but it also depends on the age of the cask. If the cask is reactive, it will dominate the flavours of the whisky within ten years of the ageing process. If you leave the spirit in the cask for much longer, the flavour of the whisky will be overpowered by the wood, lending it a distinct edge. Maclean was in Delhi to conduct the Singleton Sensorial experience.

I love single malts. Especially the old Islay whiskies. They say age removes the fire but leaves the warmth. I like that.” You

Along the pavement-colored hall doors stood half open on either side, all the way down; each one was numbered in bright bald tin, each one stood just so much ajar in the gas-lit corridor. Just enough to reveal half-dressed men and women waiting for the rain or about to make love or already through loving and about to get drunk; or already half drunk and beginning to argue about how soon it was going to rain or whose turn it was to run down for whisky or whether it was time to make love again or forget it for once and just wait for rain.

Judd sat alone in the chapel. They’d let him in for a handful of minutes to look down on Christabel’s white, drawn little face. If he’d been able to get to a bar, he could have gone through a fifth of whisky afterward. It was shocking to see her like that. She was hooked up to half a dozen monitoring machines with a needle in her arm feeding her nutrients and apparently a narcotic for pain. There was a tube coming out of her side to drain her chest. Perhaps it was the same tube they’d used to reinflate the lung as well. Not since she was sixteen had she been so badly hurt, and even then it wasn’t this serious. There hadn’t been the risk that she could die from her father’s brutal beating. This was different. She looked fragile and helpless and so alone. Her big dark eyes were closed. There were dark circles under them. When she breathed, he heard the slow rasp of fluid in her chest. Her lips were blue. She looked as if she’d already died. He’d touched her small hand with his big one and remembered the last thing she’d said to him before Clark showed up. Tippy had told her that he’d been disgusted with her, that he hadn’t wanted her hanging on him, running after him with her heart on her sleeve. His eyes had closed with a shudder. If she didn’t make it, her last memory of him would be one of pain and betrayal. It wasn’t true. He wasn’t disgusted. He lay awake nights remembering the passion they’d shared. He missed her. It was like being without an arm or a leg. He’d told her he didn’t want anything permanent. Now the choice might not be his anymore. He might be left alone, as he’d thought he wanted to be when he told her he was getting the divorce. Somewhere he remembered an old adage. Be careful what you want; you might get it. He looked at Christabel’s still body and saw the end of everything he loved.

on his off nights he could forever be the shadowy, multifarious man who blew in and out on a dangerous breeze, sipping whisky before pollinating another dark place with his cowboy mysteriousness. In

The concert was magnificent. It was the second time she saw Floor and she loved them. Psychedelic rock. Indie. Hardcore. They always started with this great classic love song they sang a capella backstage while passing around some whisky. They each took a swig as they sang. The beautiful melodies that came out of this were amazing and the audience sang along. It was always a breathtaking moment.

Liza hated alcoholic liquors with an iron zeal. Drinking alcohol in any form she regarded as a crime against a properly outraged deity. Not only would she not touch it herself, but she resisted its enjoyment by anyone else. The result, naturally, was that her husband Samuel and all her children had a good lusty love for a drink. Once when he was very ill Samuel asked, "Liza, couldn't I have a glass of whisky to ease me?" She set her little hard chin. "Would you go to the throne of God with liquor on your breath? You would not!" she said. Samuel rolled over on his side and went about his illness without ease. When Liza was about seventy her elimination slowed up and the doctor told her to take a tablespoon of port wine for medicine. She forced down the first spoonful, making a crooked face, but it was not so bad. And from that moment she never drew a completely sober breath. She always took the wine in a tablespoon, it was always medicine, but after a time she was doing over a quart a day and she was a much more relaxed and happy woman.

Habits The word “habit” comes from the Old French abit, habit, from Latin habitus “condition, appearance,” from habere “have, consist of.” The term originally meant “dress, attire,” and the noun “habit” meant a monk’s outfit. The habit was an external sign of a monk’s internal constitution, which defined their whole life. Later the meaning of this word drifted to denote physical or mental constitution. Constitution, consisting of, consistency. Habits just scream consistency.[iv] Habits get things done because your mind does not have to focus as much on semiautomatic routines and can therefore conserve energy. It also will spend less time debating with itself about whether to do something. When routines turn into habits, they become the “status quo,” and the rightness of them isn’t debated any more. On the other hand, one-off activities easily generate excuses because it is easier not to do something new than it is to do it. Your mind will think of many reasons for inactivity: Listen to what it is saying . . . • It’s hard, don’t tire yourself. • It’s new, you don’t know the effect or result, so better not risk something bad. • You’ll make a jerk out of yourself, better stay low and enjoy what you’ve got so far. • It’s a lot of fuss, why don’t drink a glass of whisky/play the computer/eat pizza instead? • You have no chance to achieve anything meaningful in a reasonable time (a few minutes); give up, stop wasting the energy. • What? Do you want to do it for years, with no guarantee of success? Are you out of your mind? That’s a lot of energy to commit! • Hey, I love the couch and the TV and there will be less time for that if you commit to this new venture. I protest! You do not consciously think about habits. They are just a part of your constitution. And your mind cannot abandon them once they are a part of you. Any time you install a new activity into your life in the form of a habit, your mind not only accepts it but becomes its guard. Whenever the time or circumstances indicate that the habit should be done, your mind reminds you about it, gently or otherwise.

Aditya is fond of his whisky but prefers to drink at home when he is with his family. Deepak loves Beck's and Heineken beer with his Sunday lunches. His evening preference is Johnnie Walker's Blue Label. He holds the glass but hardly drinks, only taking small sips every once in a while. A smart strategy, especially when he has to hop parties for networking. Ram doesn't drink. For Paresh, even tea is poison. Rajan finds beer too strong and, given a chance, will dilute it. Vinod, the 'original Brit' as some of his colleagues dub him, is always measured in drinking, like his steps while walking. They are all very different from one another; they have their whims, their fancies, their idiosyncrasies, but they have coexisted wonderfully well in professional harmony.

Whisky can indeed be used as an antiseptic, but I'd recommend it only as a last resort, since pouring it into an open wound could damage exposed tissue. I'd much rather pour it into a glass and drink it neat over ice." "You like whisky?" Keir asked. "Love it," came her prompt reply, which Merritt could see had earned his instant liking.

You see, for an American, whisky is sweeter in Paris.

It must be very consoling to take refuge in cynicism and to try and drown your own remorse in a consoling vision of universal swinishness, and you can always try whisky, when that fails. For centuries those people were hunters, and now hunting has been taken away from them, without anything taking its place. When you separate people from their past without giving them anything in its place, they live with their eyes on that past . . . They're not the ones to blame.” "I believe Morel was defending a certain idea of decency— the way we are treated on this earth filled him with indignation. At bottom, he was an Englishman without knowing it. To cut a long story short — I suppose you came here to ask me for an explanation — it seemed to me quite natural that a British officer should be associated with that business. After all, my country is well known for its love of animals." Perhaps one day I shall even get the Nobel Prize— if, one day, they have a Nobel Prize for humaneness . . They were all solid people who haven’t suffered enough, so they just couldn’t understand ... Thou art rich. Thy creature is poor. Thou art glorious and Thy creature is vile. Thou art measureless and Thy creature is contemptible. Thou art great and Thy creature is small. Thou art strong and Thy creature is weak. I thank Thee that Thou art Thou . . They would shrug and call you a maniac— or even a humanitarian, a thing even more outmoded, backward, outdated, done with and anachronistic than the elephants. They would not understand. They had spent a few years in Paris, but they had still to undergo a real education —one which no school, lycee or university could supply: they had still to undergo their education in suffering. Then they’d be ready to understand what this was all about. He was not effeminate, but like many youngsters in whom virility did not exclude gentleness, he must often have had to endure wounding jokes His was a stubborn, desperate and yet triumphant reverie. He saw the face of his friend Kaj Munk, the pastor whom the Nazis had shot because he defended one of the most tenacious roots heaven had ever planted in the hearts of men— the root they called liberty. We have no other aim than to stop the murder of animals that goes on in the African jungle and elsewhere whoever amputated your poor soul did a thorough job of it

The Misfits Marilyn întârzia zilnic cu orele la filmare, pentru că lua atâtea tranchilizante, că era cu neputinţă să fie trezită. Pare-se că se simţea trădată de cei trei amanţi, J.F. Kennedy, Yves Montand şi Miller însuşi, care o folosise pentru a-şi repune cariera pe linia de plutire. Iar când ajungea pe platoul de filmare, mare lucru nu reuşea să facă: ori uitase textul, ori avea o privire atât de pierdută, încât regizorul John Huston renunţa să filmeze. Clark Gable avea cincizeci şi nouă de ani şi nu stătea prea bine cu sănătatea, ceea ce nu-l împiedica să bea doi litri de whisky pe zi şi să fumeze trei pachete de ţigări. Cavaler din şcoala cea veche, nu se enerva niciodată când Marilyn întârzia: se mulţumea s-o ciupească de fund şi s-o îndemne: „La treabă, frumoaso“. La rândul lui, Montgomery Clift o luase şi el pe băutură şi pe droguri după accidentul care îl desfigurase şi, în plus, nici nu-şi asuma homosexualitatea. În atare situaţie, John Huston şi-a pierdut şi el interesul pentru lucru şi-şi petrecea toate nopţile la cazino. Intra la unsprezece şi pleca la cinci dimineaţa. Ajunsese să datoreze atâţia bani, că – se zice – a oprit filmările şi a trimis-o pe Marilyn la spital, ca să câştige timp şi să iasă din încurcătură. A fost o adevărată minune că pe 5 noiembrie 1960 au reuşit să termine filmul. Pesemne că a fost o experienţă dură, căci a doua zi Clark Gable a murit în urma unei crize cardiace. A fost şi ultimul film al lui Marilyn, care nu după multă vreme a sucombat după o supradoză. Bomboana de pe colivă a fost că Vieţi rebele a fost un eşec financiar.

Ian had thought his brothers fools about that. If they couldn’t understand the difference between three overbearing Scotsmen who smelled of smoke and whisky, and a lovely young woman scented with attar of roses, he couldn’t help them.

What is the sea for the man who has loved and left her? She is fire-water, whisky, rum, a roric flame. She is a green-eyed witch; she speaks in tongues. Her coral rings are forged of skeletons; her white shoulders glisten with the dust of powdered bones. She is memory, the number of numbers, the eye of the world, the mirror of the sea. What is the ocean for the sailor who has loved and left her? The one lover who dissolves the night. A bottomless glass of moonshine. And sailors? All sea-talkers. The sons of mermen.

Séb and I explored the beautiful neighborhood of l'Île Saint-Louis, eating savory crêpes made of buckwheat and filled with creamy goat cheese, crunchy arugula, and juicy tomatoes at one of the cafés, me doing my best to savor the textures. Lunch was followed by the famed Berthillon sorbets and ice creams, the latter of which we ate on the banks of the Seine, Séb drooling over the richness of the flavors. Considering they had over seventy parfums, we'd both found it hard to settle on one. Séb, the adventurer, took café au whisky with another scoop of tiramisu. I'd ended up taking abricot and framboise, always loving how apricot mixed with raspberries, and wanting something cool on this scorcher of a day.

Closing my eyes, I can see the main entrance, the paneled front windows, the wide portico and three gray-black speckled granite steps leading up to the massive front door of whisky-colored oak, often propped open by a heavy curling stone and often manned by one red-coated footman, and inside the spacious hall and its white stone floor, with gray star-shaped tiles, and the huge fireplace with its beautiful mantel of ornately carved dark wood, and to one side a kind of utility room, and to the left, by the tall windows, hooks for fishing rods and walking sticks and rubber waders and heavy waterproofs—so many waterproofs, because summer could be wet and cold all over Scotland, but it was biting in this Siberian nook—and then the light brown wooden door leading to the corridor with the crimson carpet and the walls papered in cream, a pattern of gold flock, raised like braille, and then the many rooms along the corridor, each with a specific purpose, like sitting or reading, TV or tea, and one special room for the pages, many of whom I loved like dotty uncles, and finally the castle’s main chamber, built in the nineteenth century, nearly on top of the site of another castle dating to the fourteenth century, within a few generations of another Prince Harry, who got himself exiled, then came back and annihilated everything and everyone in sight.

He should narrate the smutty audiobooks I loved to listen to. It would be like having a sexier James McAvoy whisper in your ear.

As humans, we demanded a beginning and end to make sense of the world around us. But for this, there would be an after, but no end. My love for her was as boundless as the mountain we lay upon. When she left me, my love would remain, burning just as fiercely as it did now.

You need to leave and I won't ever try to hold you back. But how about this . . . when you go, what if I just keep on loving you. For the rest of my life. Would that be okay?

For there’s nothing I will not force language To do to make us one — whether water Hurts like whisky or the sun burns like oil Or love declines to weathered names on stone. —George Elliott Clarke, from “Bees’ Wings,” Whylah Falls (1990)

Bee’s Wings This washed-out morning, April rain descants, Weeps over gravity, the broken bones Of gravel and graveyards, and Cora puts Away gold dandelions to sugar And skew into gold wine, then discloses That Pablo gutted his engine last night Speeding to Beulah Beach under a moon As pocked and yellowed as aged newsprint. Now, Othello, famed guitarist, heated By rain-clear rum, voices transparent notes Of sad, anonymous heroes who hooked Mackerel and slept in love-pried-open thighs And gave out booze in vain crusades to end Twenty centuries of Christianity. His voice is simple, sung air: without notes, There's nothing. His unknown, imminent death (The feel of iambs ending as trochees In a slow, decasyllabic death-waltz; His vertebrae trellised on his stripped spine Like a 'xylophone or keyboard of nerves) Will also be nothing: the sun pours gold Upon Shelley, his sis', light as bees' wings, Who roams a garden sprung from rotten wood And words, picking green nouns and fresh, bright verbs, For there's nothing I will not force language To do to make us one — whether water Hurts like whisky or the sun burns like oil Or love declines to weathered names on stone. George Elliott Clarke, Whylah Falls (1990)

Everyone has secrets. Everyone has something they regret. Or someone. A song will remind you. The sour taste of whisky. Your mother’s wrinkles on your hand. But some secrets can bind us together, a gay lover’s trust, a family’s Santa story, one friend who listens. Some secrets are kept secret out of love. This is why I give you this book.

As he spoke and she listened, the sounds of people talking, of children playing, became faint. The girl and he were alone under the great sailing moon. . . He told a story he was amazed to hear. What he had to say about horses seemed to have meanings pertinent to the whole world. He was clearing up mysteries for himself as he went along. If you got to the bottom of one subject, did the truth about all other subjects lie there, too? If you knew one thing fully, did you, in a way, know all? Was that the reason old farmers and coon hunters were so wise? Once before in his life he had been drunk. At the age of sixteen, he had sampled a jug of raw corn whisky. He had felt a kind of power at the time: as if he had transcended himself, were suspended above himself. This enabled him to see a lot of the world ordinarily not visible; he saw also his own smallness in this world. Now he was drunk again, but in an entirely different way. He was more himself than he had ever been before; and this was happening at the very minute when he was also more aware of another person than he had ever been before. How could this be? It contradicted all the rules of arithmetic. To give himself away and to have more left. He felt like saying his own name over and over again. . .that was who he had been, but might never be again; for this girl was making him over by listening to him. . . .it was not a one-sided conversation. . .he could never have done it without her. She taught him all his powers, showed him all his meanings. Until she asked her questions, he didn't know his answers. He had never in his life felt so radiant. She looked at him, she asked. He spoke. Something towered upward out of the interchange; together they opened up meaning he had never glimpsed before. . .

And then his arms were suddenly around her. For a split second, time stood still for Laurel, and what was more, she wished it to. She wanted to preserve that moment, the moment just before, when everything was still possible and perfect. When the night was bright with anticipation and the promise of a kiss hung in the air between them, filling the room with a hair-raising charge like the feeling just before a bolt of lightning strikes during a terrific thunderstorm. He stepped closer and she breathed in deeply. The scent of a clean masculine soap, the rich spice of an expensive cologne, and beneath it all, the duke himself, earthy, woodsy, and so very male. Laurel’s eyes closed as his body pressed against hers. It was very firm and hard, just as she had imagined it would be. The sensation was intriguing. She could feel his breath on her face. Smell the rich caramel notes of the whisky he had been drinking. He was very close now. Then the moment was over and a new one began, and things would never, ever be the same.

If you can't find a Bowmore to fall in love with, you may have to consider very seriously the possibility that you're wasting your money drinking whisky at all.

Samir loves Joe’s face. He studies it every day in class: a face as old as his own but already, in eighteen years, the cli s and hills and odd proportions of its geography have been shaped by life’s weather. Samir likes to observe the ever-watchful green eyes, hidden in their shadowy alcoves over the at nose and cheekbones, and the heavy brow that scrunches up with Joe’s moods – all those sculptural planes could have been carved by Easter Islanders. en there’s the pout of his lips, the pucker of their concentration or the twist of their anger. But most of all, Samir examines the thoughts as they cross the wide-open landscape of the face. Tries hard to read their cloud shapes from the merest shadow.

Samir loves Joe’s face. He studies it every day in class: a face as old as his own but already, in eighteen years, the cliffs and hills and odd proportions of its geography have been shaped by life’s weather. Samir likes to observe the ever-watchful green eyes, hidden in their shadowy alcoves over the at nose and cheekbones, and the heavy brow that scrunches up with Joe’s moods – all those sculptural planes could have been carved by Easter Islanders. en there’s the pout of his lips, the pucker of their concentration or the twist of their anger. But most of all, Samir examines the thoughts as they cross the wide-open landscape of the face. Tries hard to read their cloud shapes from the merest shadow.

Now he must get back to Margaret. In the old days, he used to come home full of tales about deliveries, excited, even exalted by having witnessed the same old miracle. But after they lost both their sons in the war, she couldn't stand to hear about any of that and he kept it to himself. She had become a shadow, acquiescent, passive, full of humdrum little remarks about the house and the weather and how hard he was on his clothes, and then he'd bought her a puppy, and she talked endlessly about that. It had become a fat spoiled dog, and still she talked about it as though it were a puppy. It was all he could think to do for her, as his grief had never been allowed to be on par with hers. He kept that to himself as well. But when he was alone in the car like this, and with a drop of whisky inside him, he thought about Ian and Donald who were never spoken of at home, who would, he felt, be entirely forgotten except for his own memory and their names on the village monument.

Toddy, excellent both as a cure for cold and as an elixir of life, requires careful preparation. The ingredients are sugar, boiling water and preferably a well-matured malt whisky. First, you heat the tumbler with warm water and, when the glass has reached a comfortable temperature, you pour out the water. Then into the empty glass you put two or three squares of loaf-sugar and add enough boiling water - a wine glass should suffice - to dissolve the sugar. Then add a wineglass of whisky and stir with a silver spoon; then another wineglass of boiling water, and finally to crown this liquid edifice top it with another wineglass of whisky. Stir again and drink the contents with slow and loving care. As a cure for cold, take your toddy to bed, put one bowler hat at the foot, and drink until you see two.

I felt my heart flutter on seeing her. Either I was in love or last night's whisky and finger chips were causing acidity.

She lifted a piece of sourdough bruschetta slathered with seafood and a light-colored sauce. She bit carefully into the creation. Her mouth exploded with flavor. Prawns and lobster swimming in the most delectable sauce. Buttery and layered, with whisky and leeks and onions and simple herbs. Sophia moaned. There was more than just one bite on this plate. Thank God. Not strictly a true amuse-bouche, but Sophia didn't care. Was it bad form to lick the plate in a cooking competition? This drab little plate had miraculously fixed her taste bud deficiency. Unbelievable. The moment had just shifted from black-and-white to color, like a scene from the Wizard of Oz. Who had created this dish? Someone with a sophisticated palate but no eye for visual presentation. The last plate beckoned, but she already knew it was a lost cause. There was no way it could best that seafood stew. It was a lovely crepe, packed with grilled eggplant and goat cheese. And now that Sophia's taste had been awakened from hibernation, she was able to enjoy every bite. But it still wasn't enough to out-shine the prawns. Those prawns sang to her, and they needed her. They demanded color and brightness. The sauce was bold and rich. That plate clamored for the balance of her garden. She could imagine a prickly little salad to offer texture and bite, to complement that exquisite sauce. Those prawns needed her.

Later, looking back on the day, Ammu realised that the slightly feverish glitter in her bridegroom's eyes had not been love, or even excitement at the prospect of carnal bliss, but approximately eight large pegs of whisky. Straight. Neat.

Hugh Collins wasn’t exactly what Perdita had visualised as a northern landlord. An elegant man with beautifully styled white hair, he was dressed in a red velvet waistcoat and smelled distinctly of whisky. It looked like James had long since made himself comfortable and was lounging in front of a roaring open fire, with what looked like a single malt in his glass. Perdita felt her temper rise but stifled it and decided to direct what little energy she had left elsewhere. She followed, dumbed by fatigue, to a back room where Hugh had laid a table in front of another huge fire.