There had fallen upon the bar-parlour of the Anglers’ Rest one of those soothing silences which from time to time punctuate the nightly feasts of Reason and flows of Soul in that cosy resort. It was broken by a Whiskey and Splash.

“I’ve been thinking a lot,” said the Whiskey and Splash…

Cats will Be Cats (Mulliner Nights)

I recently wrote an item on ‘Drink’ in my personal blog, which was meant to be entertaining, but reads far more seriously than intended. As usual, this error could have been avoided with a little Plumtopian inspiration – Wodehouse had plenty to offer on the subject, as his biographer Robert McCrum noted recently in Oxford Today: ‘Wodehouse and the English language’:

Unique in the canon of English literature, almost none of Wodehouse’s characters is indifferent to the temptations of a quiet snort. Wodehouse’s Drones will make for the bar like buffalo for a watering hole. Their lexicon for inebriated includes: awash; boiled; fried; lathered; illuminated; oiled; ossified; pie-eyed; polluted; primed; stinko; squiffy; tanked and woozled.

I am especially fond of Wodehouse’s application of drinking lingo to non-drinking situations. The line, ‘he was white and shaken, like a dry Martini,” is often quoted, even appearing under the ‘Free Online Dictionary definition for Shock. Other examples along these lines include:

“Hugo, scooped J. Wilmot out of his comfortable morris chair as if he had been a clam, corked him up in a swift taxicab, and decanted him into a Deck B stateroom on the Olympic.”

The Man with Two Left Feet

And:

“The Right Hon. was a tubby little chap who looked as if he had been poured into his clothes and had forgotten to say `When!’ ”

Very Good Jeeves

And then there are the drinking exploits of old Pelicans Galahad Threepwood and Uncle Fred. In Heavy Weather, Wodehouse teases us with glamourous stories from Gally’s unpublished Reminiscences, including this tale of Plug Basham’s efforts to give up drinking.

…about two weeks later I came on him in the Strand, and he was bubbling over with quiet happiness. “It’s all right, Gally,” he said, “it’s all right, old lad. I’ve done it. I’ve won the battle.”

“Amazing, Plug,” I said. “Brave chap! Splendid fellow! Was it a terrific strain?”

His eyes lit up. “It was at first,” he said. “In fact, it was so tough that I didn’t think I should be able to stick it out. And then I discovered a teetotal drink that is not only palatable but positively appealing. Absinthe, they call it, and now I’ve got that I don’t care if I never touch wine, spirits, or any other intoxicants again.”

Heavy Weather

Wodehouse’s popular hero Bertie Wooster hero is, by his own admission, a comparatively light drinker.

Except at times of special revelry, I am exceedingly moderate in my potations. A brace of cocktails, a glass of wine at dinner and possibly a liqueur with the coffee – that is Bertram Wooster.

The Code of The Woosters

I could go on – and I had planned to – but in the course of my research today I’ve discovered a certain Pete Bunten has been there before me. Am I bitter? Not a bit. I can heartily recommend you to partake in a snifter of his excellent work, Literary Drinkers where he pays a fitting homage to our beloved Wodehouse.

What are your favourite drinking quotes from Wodehouse?

HP

Source notes:

• Cover image of a White Lady cocktail by City Foodsters CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D via Wikimedia Commons