Dorothy L. Sayers, the British writer best known for her aristocratic, crime-fighting, dilettante sleuth, Lord Peter Wimsey, also spent some time spinning advertising magic. She wrote some famous ad slogans: “My Goodness, My Guinness”, “Guinness is good for you”, and “It pays to advertise.” Which just shows that the brilliant intellectual knew her stuff, and perhaps we should yield to her powers of persuasion.
I know – all the other food columns this weekend will be telling you how to prepare the World’s Best Corned Beef and Cabbage, or Yummy Irish Stew prepared with Guinness stout. They are all about St. Patrick’s Day, and green beer, and steak and ale pies and feeling sentimental about the Auld Sod.
You won’t find that malarkey here at The Spy. I still recoil with horror at the very notion of corned beef. That cooked cabbage odor haunts me lo these many years since I last smelled it, wafting up the stairway from my mother’s kitchen to my lair at the back of the house. I will NEVER cook a cabbage. I can promise you that.
Instead I offer up to you a cocktail that we had over Christmas, and have mixed up a few times since then. Next Thursday night you can bet that I will be cracking open the Guinness and a bottle of Prosecco in honor of Saint Patrick.
I give to you, The Black Velvet
4 ounces (1/2 cup) chilled Champagne or Prosecco
4 ounces (1/2 cup) chilled Guinness Extra Stout
Simplicity itself.
Pour the Champagne into a tall glass. We first had ours served in heavy pewter tankards, but at home we eschew the delicate flutes for a sturdy rocks glass as shown in the illo. This is not an effete drink. It is robust, and fills your hand with determination. Be sure to pour the Guinness on top. (This is important: Guinness is heavier. If you pour the sparkling wine second, it won’t combine evenly, and will need to be stirred. I shudder at the thought!)
If you want to have a less lively St. Patrick’s Day, then I suggest you bake a nice Guinness Cake. You can drink the leftover stout while you are waiting for the cake to bake, and then you will manage to enjoy both the thrill of the stout as well as the gooey chocolate essence of the cake. I will warn you, though, that virtue is its own reward.
Here is a Guinness Cake from the kitchen goddess herself, Nigella Lawson:
https://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/chocolate-guinness-cake-3086
I just love her opening line: “This cake is magnificent in its damp blackness.”
It is about time to haul out The Quiet Man for our annual John Wayne, Maureen O’Hara love fest. Where we gaze at the gauzy golden Hollywood Innisfree, and admire John Wayne in a rain soaked shirt and laugh at Barry Fitzgerald’s tippling matchmaker. That calls for another Guinness.
“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts, and beer.”
― Abraham Lincoln
..
Write a Letter to the Editor on this Article
We encourage readers to offer their point of view on this article by submitting the following form. Editing is sometimes necessary and is done at the discretion of the editorial staff.