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B is for Beer

This is a campus novel but even the swanky students at Hampden College are not immune to beer. Here is Judy Poovey telling Richard about her encounter with the twins Charles and Camilla: “For some reason this girl twin was walking through the dance floor and pow, I slammed right into her, really hard. So then she says something rude, like totally uncalled for, and first thing I knew I’d already thrown my beer in her face. It was that kind of a night. I’d already had about six beers thrown on me, and it just seemed like the thing to do, you know?”.

B is for Bloody Mary

Charles downs four of them in the Brasserie immediately after being discharged from hospital. He doesn’t eat a thing.

B is for Brandy (brand unnamed)

Richard and Bunny have a few of these to round off their epic lunch at the start of the book.

(The Secret History, by Donna Tartt)

C is for Champagne

It fizzes all the way through, Frances is forever clutching a bottle in his refined hands, it starts dinners and ends evenings. Taittinger is the only brand named.

C is for Chateau Latour

Served with some potentially sinister mushrooms at Julian’s house:
“There was roasted lamb, new potatoes, peas with leeks and fennel; a rich almost maddeningly delicious bottle of Chateau Latour. I was eating with better appetite than I had in ages when I noticed that a fourth course had appeared, with unobtrusive magic, at my elbow: mushrooms. They were pale and slender-stemmed, of a type I had seen before, steaming in a red wine sauce that smelled of coriander and rue.

“Where did you get these?” I said

“Ah. You’re quite observant,” he said, pleased. “Aren’t they marvelous? Quite rare. Henry brought them to me.”

C is for a Cocktail (unnamed)

Bunny discovered this revolting drink in Jamaica and orders it in the country club when he goes out to lunch with Richard near the start of the book:

“’What’s in that, anyway?’ I asked Bunny, leaning to look at the drink the waiter had brought him. It was the size of a small fishbowl, bright coral, with coloured straws and paper parasols and bits of fruit sticking out of it at frenetic angles.

Bunny pulled out one of the parasols and licked the end of it.

‘Lots of stuff. Rum, cranberry juice, coconut milk, triple sec, peach brandy, crème de menthe, I don’t know what all, taste it. It’s good.’

‘No thanks.’”

C is for a Cutty Sark whisky

Taken to Charles in hospital who might do better with a bunch of grapes.

(The Secret History, by Donna Tartt)

This book has no bottles beginning with D

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K is for Kamikazes

“Something terrible always happens to me when I drink Kamikazes. I wreck my car, I get into fights…” says Judy Poovey to Richard when she gives him a jacket to wear to drinks with Bunny. Kamikaze is a shot made of equal parts vodka, triple sec and lime juice. No wonder bad things happen…

(The Secret History, by Donna Tartt)

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M is for Margaritas

Judy Poovey and her friends enjoy these dyed “a horrifying electric blue”.

M is for Martini

Richard drinks several at his lunch with Bunny—doesn’t specify gin or vodka.

(The Secret History, by Donna Tartt)

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P is for Prairie Oysters

Francis and Bunny are drinking these when Richard is on the verge of discovering their secret, or one of them:
“Francis pushes his over to me without looking at it.
‘Here, drink this,’ he said, ‘I’ll be sick if I look at it another second.’

The yolk quivered, gently, in its bloody bath of ketchup and Worcestershire.”

(The Secret History, by Donna Tartt)

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S is for Scotch

Which Richard and Henry drink as Henry reveals their bacchanal and the murder of the unknown man in the forest: “I poured myself another glass, too, and we sat without speaking for a minute more.”

(The Secret History, by Donna Tartt)

T is for Taittinger

“Three bottles of Taittinger on top of our cocktails” – drunk during their marathon lunch by Bunny and Richard.

(The Secret History, by Donna Tartt)

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W is for Whisky

“Bottles of whisky crowd the surfaces” of Charles and Camilla’s crumbling house—very reminiscent of Miss Havisham’s mansion in Great Expectations. After Camilla cuts her foot very badly Charles and Richard recover with whisky and soda.

(The Secret History, by Donna Tartt)

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