[FIND] Vice - Travis McGee

Our P.I. hero this month isn't even a real P.I. But go ahead; try and turn him away. Standing 6'4" with a 205 lb frame, 33" waist, and size 46L sport coat, he sees no need to suffer fools or take "no" for an answer.

Travis McGee, "salvage consultant," is one of the best-loved characters in the detective genre. Sure, he's not actually a licensed shamus, but no matter. He is The Man.

McGee's creator John D. MacDonald crafted color-coded time capsules of a bygone era--a swampy, 1960s Florida landscape that's been drained and paved by the kind of venal lowlifes McGee loves to punish. McGee's paternal, almost condescending eye for the fairer sex reflects a "Mad Men" ethos that borders on predatory but reflects the Man's Man attitudes of the day. Although McGee, in his words, "cut a wide swath through a wall of female flesh," don't judge him by our more "enlightened" present. MacDonald was writing about his own era and, thus, carries the authenticity of Spillane's 1950s, with its attendant paranoia, racism, and homophobia, swept neatly under a carpet of illusory innocence.

Detective novelist George Pelecanos calls Travis McGee "the embodiment of early 60s male wish-fulfillment." And when you think about it, what man wouldn't want his build, and his life: no real job, no cubicle, no nine-to-five. He's capable with his fists but no bully. He's tall and handsome, but a thinking man's action hero, despite his physicality. McGee's best pal Meyer, summed it up: "Add all those ingredients together and stir well, and you can come up with a lasting case of psychological impotence."

"The only suitable attitude towards oneself and the world is the awareness of pathetic, slapstick comedy."  -Travis McGee, from Free Fall in Crimson


The Cocktail
courtesy of our own Patterson House mixologist, James Hensley, who writes The Spirit Monkey blog.


The Busted Flush, a manly swizzle

2 oz.     Flor de Cana 7-year rum
1/2 oz.  Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur
1/2 oz.  Orange Reduction
1/4 oz.  Demerara Syrup
3           large lime cut into 1/8ths

Muddle the lime eighth in the bottom of a Collins glass. Fill glass 3/4 full with crushed ice, then add all the liquid ingredients. Swizzle until a fine layer of frost forms on the exterior of the glass, making sure to keep the lime rinds at the bottom of the glass. Fill rest of glass to heaping with more crushed ice, and garnish with a standing lime wheel on the rim of the glass. Stir well...and forget the consequences.


The Cigar

Joe Zike, UPtowns cigar expert and wordsmith extraordinaire, pairs McGee with a Montecristo No. 2.

Joe: "The protagonist of arguably the best detective series ever written will smoke one of the best Cuban cigars in production, the Montecristo No. 2. This cigar offers the tan, ruminating Floridian the perfect opportunity to extemporize his philosophies. Just over six inches long with a 52 ring gauge, the cigar offers an hour-long indulgence in cocoa and leather flavors. While it could serve as a welcome hiatus, for McGee it has more of a fourth wall effect, as he places the absurdities and violent images of his work in and out of context, resulting in a pithy perspective."

March Ledger is in production

March is fast approaching. As that extensive, snow-perbole winter slips into the rear view mirror, dust off the straw and put the Borsalino back in its box.

The March issue of The Monthly Ledger is in production as I type. This month we explore the Miami haunts of Travis McGee in our monthly column, [FIND] Vice. Get ready for a fine cigar and another tasty cocktail from our operatives at UpTowns and The Patterson House.

Brace for the oncoming spate of sunny days and check your email in-box the first part of next week for more news from [FIND] Investigations.

THH

[FIND] Vice - Jake Gittes

"What I do for a living may not be very reputable. But I am. In this town I'm the leper with the most fingers." Jake Gittes, "The Two Jakes"

Loach: What happened to your nose, Gittes? Somebody slammed a bedroom window on it?

Jake Gittes: Nope. Your wife got excited. She crossed her legs a little too quick. You understand what I mean, pal?

Equal parts mystery and psycho-thriller, the 1974 movie Chinatown revived the film noir genre and gave the world one of [FIND]'s favorite fictional private eyes, Los Angeles gumshoe J.J. "Jake" Gittes, played by Jack Nicholson.

Screenwriting professors everywhere get all misty about Robert Towne's  superbly-crafted screenplay, a dark tale of murder, corruption, and water rights set in 1930s Southern California. Towne's stark, whittled-down dialogue breathes life into Gittes, a cynical, every-man-for-himself divorce-shamus resplendent in a back-belted white linen suit and straw hat.

Gittes isn't afraid to compromise to the very edge of legality and sleaze, but the evil he encounters surrounding his mysterious client, Mrs. Mulray (Faye Dunaway), pushes the limits of even Gittes's flexible morality. Embittered by some murky past as a cop in L.A.'s Chinatown, in which his job was to "do as little as possible," he's learned that nothing is ever as it seems.

Gittes's momentary resurgence as a man who protects the weak and fights for what's right comes to naught, in a dark, climactic scene re-tooled by director Roman Polanski from the original screenplay. Gittes, again, steeps in disgust at the futility of salvation in a venal world. As the two watch the tragedy unfold, Gittes's partner, Lawrence Walsh, tells him, "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."

The Cocktail
James Hensley manages The Patterson House, a favorite watering hole of ours, and just the kind of dramatically-lit speakeasy Gittes would have loved, if only he could pay the bar tab. Hensley cooked up the ideal mouth-shattering cocktail in honor of that rough-cut L.A. gumshoe:


The Chinatown

1.5 oz.             Lunazul Reposado Tequila

1/2 oz.             Chichicappa Mezcal

3/4 oz.             Fresh lime juice

3/4 oz.             Ginger syrup

1/2 oz.             Aperol

Place all ingredients in a shaker with ice and shake. Strain over ice in a rocks glass and garnish with ginger candy.

The Cigar

PI Gittes seems to need to unwind, relax, let his thinning hair down, whatever one may call it, with a cigar after an investigation that left him with a mutilated nostril. He doesn't need anything too strong, but something smooth and capable of creating a contemplative distance from the day's events. 

The Zino Classic No. 1 would do just fine. It is mild to medium, depending on one's palate. The Ecuadorian wrapper complements the cigar's Dominican and Honduran tobacco to reveal a very slightly bitter, buttery, woodsy flavor. 

Wrapper: Ecuador 

Binder: Honduras 

Filler: Dominican Republic, Honduras

(Wordsmithing and cigar suggestion courtesy of Joe Zike at UPtown's Smoke Shop)

[FIND] VICE

Assignment: Pair a cocktail and a cigar with a fictional PI

Subject: Joe Mannix

Quote: "If you're not gonna pull that trigger immediately, mind if I have a cigarette?" From the episode, "To the Swiftest Death"

Joe Mannix paved the way for all of the TV private eyes we grew up with. He was tough, bull-headed, good-looking, and had a flair for cool cars and fantastic sports coats. We can see traces of Mannix in Rockford (think bright plaid and patterned sports jackets). Magnum took the cool car theme to a whole new level, but it was Mannix who first pulled surveillance in a hey-look-at-me-stand-out-in-a-crowd car.

A Korean War veteran, Mannix knew how to maintain a level head. Whether he was careening down a dirt road in a snazzy convertible or engaged in gun-play with mobsters in ill-fitting, wide-collared, poly-blend suits, Mannix was solid. He’d readily throw a punch, rely on a hunch, and more often than not eschew technology and gadgets for a good old confrontation.

This rough-and-tumble Armenian-American detective was, in short, what every woman in the early seventies wanted, needed. And yet, despite the passel of hot polyester-clad babes that strolled in and out of his life, Mannix, it seemed, was a bachelor’s bachelor, doomed to fly solo. Sharing his most intimate moments with his trusty and (as the website thrillingdetective.com puts it) “oft-kidnapped” secretary Peggy.

Mannix put a modern face on the private eye of the postwar-noir era, bringing the fictional detective into the seventies with a clear nod to the genre. Mike Connors, the actor who brought Mannix to life, once said that somewhere out there "Mannix is still working...There was a decency and a dignity about the man."

Assignment: The Cigar

Operative: Scott Partridge, General Manager

Uptown's Smoke Shop

4001 Hillsboro Road

Nashville, TN 37215

Pairing: After giving the matter a lot of thought, our cigar expert Scott Partridge said, “I would pair him up with a CAO GOLD VINTAGE.” Partridge, general manager of Uptown’s Smoke Shop in Green Hills, argues that the CAO Gold Vintage is possibly one of the best “smooth, medium-bodied cigars” on the market. Like Mannix, the Gold Vintage is dressed to attract, but built tough. Partridge describes the Gold Vintage as having “a silky wrapper that entices with a leathery pre-light nose. Each pull delivers layers of buttery notes backed by a definitive spicy core, attributed to the Habano seed-filler tobaccos from Honduras and Nicaragua.”

Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m on my way over to Uptown’s to pick up my CAO Gold Vintage this afternoon. Maybe, we’ll run into each other. Or maybe I’ll see you, and you’ll never even know I was in the room.

Assignment: The Cocktail

Operative: Josh Habiger, Manager

The Patterson House

1711 Division Street

Nashville, TN 37203

Pairing: Josh Habiger has earned his chef chops in venerable eateries around the world. Prior to taking the reins at The Patterson House, he worked the kitchen at The Fat Duck in London, cooked at Craft in New York, and refined his skills in molecular gastronomy at Alinea in Chicago. He’s a chef, a scholar, and knows his way around a bar. Habiger says, “I believe that Mr. Mannix should be paired with a Rusty Nail cocktail.” He describes the concoction as, “a simple drink containing a blended scotch that is sweetened with just a touch of Drambuie.” Habiger goes on to say that, “Mannix is known for his appreciation of drinking scotch neat, but this little elixir will round out the corners of the whisky and demonstrate the beauty of balance in a cocktail.” Nicely said.

Habiger’s Recipe: Mix 2 oz of your favorite blended scotch with 1/2 oz of Drambuie in a large mixing glass. Stir for about 20 seconds to get the drink cold, then pour into a chilled glass. If you prefer it on the rocks, just build the drink in the glass. Either way, garnish it with a lemon twist and enjoy it while reading your favorite spy novel.

Get yourself to The Patterson House sometime in the next two weeks. We know a guy there, name of Josh. Tell him [FIND] Investigations sent you.