The recipe for the drink that we have been calling a “Dirty Charlemagne” at Scholar HQ is:
2 oz Gin
1 oz Chambord
Tonic
Ice
Yes, it is a Gin and Tonic with some Chambord splashed in. Any drink named after Charlemagne needs to have some Chambord in it, even though it was Louis XIV that made it the Liqueur Royale.
I think we Scholars can come up with an improved Dirty Charlemagne formula for this modern day and age (with 100% less mercury), but it would take some doing and some of you might want a drink you can call a Dirty Charlemagne with our blessing before we figure out something suitably strange that doesn’t taste awful.
–Geoff
http://www.ftg-comic.com/2007/06/12/index.php
Against Newton’s better judgement, our team has followed Erasmus’s siren song of Loyola information, wine, and lutistry. And there is surely information to be had, but at what price… AT WHAT… DIRE…. PRICE??? Tune in for Episode 43: Charlemagne’s Other Legacy!!
– The Count and Geoff
I’m drawing a blank on things to talk about today…
::Points frantically at something::
Hey! Is that a pig in the background?
::Runs away::
They used mercury for pretty much everything back in the sixteenth century. Medicine, certainly, but cosmetics as well. Being a female member of high society meant regularly applying coats of lead, crushed insects, and mercurial compounds to your face and teeth in an attempt to look younger. The inevitable result was that, by the age of thirty you had black teeth, permanently tinted skin, and only clumps of your natural hair.
For that matter, perhaps it WAS better to go with the few years of beetle-carcass-enhanced radiance since the chances were you’d be dead by thirty anyway giving birth to your twelfth child…
On a less disturbing note, a hearty tip of the tophat to the folks up in the Atlantis now. If you haven’t watched the launch yet, do so. Not that it looks different from any other launch, but every so often you just have to step back and watch one, nod your head, and say, “Yeah, that’s pretty freakin’ rad, all right.” Because it totally is.
– Count Dolby von Luckner