The serialized novel ‘Life in London’ begins publication in January 1821
…and Tom and Jerry make their debut
Or, ‘Jerry Hawthorn, Esq. and his Elegant Friend Corinthian Tom in their Rambles and Sprees through the Metropolis’ make their raucous debut. If you have mental manifestations of a cartoon cat and mouse hitting each other with kitchen utensils and mousetraps, replace those with a dandy and his rube cousin jetting through London fuelled by jolly jorums, quaffs, flagons, drams, monkeys, nails in their coffins, and dampeners. The hero of the novel isn’t Corinthian Tom or naïve Jerry, it’s their livers.
This novel is a picaresque rainbow of antics as they run afoul of police officers, zookeepers, and doormen. Whatever they did, they did before drinking, after drinking, or while drinking. It reminds me of college, but with more run-ins with nuns (aka prostitutes – an etymological tradition I’d love to bring back to the 1980s to run by the Sister of the Gray nuns who tortured me so. Or who I tortured so. I could never get that straight).
To read this novel is to steep yourself fin England’s early 19th century sporting man culture. This is a misnomer, for it had nothing to do with actually doing sports. The ‘sporting man’ of 18th and 19th century England (and the U.S.) boasted a hedonistic lifestyle, had mistresses, overate, and boozed hard. In lieu of doing any sports himself, he got drunk and bet on fights between animals like dogs or chickens, or men who were bigger and poorer than he was. Or, they boozed and went hunting for big animals or for little ones like foxes who were disadvantaged in that they 1. didn’t know they were being hunted, and 2. didn’t have guns of their own to fight back with. So, yes. Very sporting.
This sporting man culture probably has its roots in the Georgian Era, which started in 1714 and lasted until around 1837 and featured not one very resilient King George, but four King Georges. (FYI, it was the third one who went nuts and lost America, but not at the same time). During the Georgian era cities blew up, expanded, urbanized, and industrialized. And when that happened, people roamed further, and needed entertainment and excitement. They already had booze, but now they wanted pursuits to pass the time while drinking it. They also found other people to do it with. So, rather than guzzling cups of ale in dark local pubs, young men went out on the town, drank with a newfound sense of camaraderie, made friends, gambled, and came up with cool terms to talk about all the harm they were doing themselves.
Even though the story of Tom and Jerry was a huge hit at the time, warranting several adapted plays, just a few years down the line it had already become outdated and bereft of its novel luster. A reviewer of the original novel returned to it two decades later and not only found it gauche, but could not even remember what it was he had liked about it. Sort of like listening to Andrew Dice Clay in 1986 and then again in 2010. (Though I’m sure he’s got a huge nun-prostitute catalogue).
And while there’s a whole cultural and sociological legacy of Tom and Jerry and the sporting man culture, the one we’re going to touch on is the 40-proof linguistic legacy it left behind. Tom and Jerry chase flashes of lightning (straight gin) with other nails in the coffin (strong spirits in shots) and then have a damper (lighter drink – beer, ale, wine) to pull the nails out of the coffin. They souse the gills, quaff a flagon, bend back a dram, and suck on a monkey. (Meaning to drink straight from a bottle, get your mind out of the gutter. Or my mind. I could never get that straight.) The character’s name itself – Corinthian Tom – in slang refers to a man about town who lives luxuriously and hedonistically. Corinth, during the 19th century, was a synonym for an immoral city as Classical Corinth was a center of lavish lifestyle and licentiousness, and was famous for its temple prostitutes. Some of whom may or may not have been nuns. But even deeper, the boys about town leave us themselves as an idiom – to tom and jerry refers to one having a raucous drink fest. Again, not our lovable cat and mouse. Well, not on work days anyway.
And what flagon shall we quaff from to commemorate our friends Corinthian Tom and Jerry Hawthorne Esquire? Well, we have options. If you don’t have a lot of time on your hands, then skip option 1 and go straight to options 2 or 3. But if you have some time and no friends and you’re interested in squeezing one more cold weather drink into the winter, go for a Tom and Jerry – yes, the cocktail named after our very lads.
Option one – Tom and Jerry
Ingredients
- 6 eggs
- A pinch of cream of tartar
- ½ ounce Jamaica rum
- ¾ teaspoon of ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
- ¼ teaspoon ground allspice
- ½ cup sugar
- Brandy or rum
- Boiling water or hot milk
- Grated nutmeg, to garnish
- Trust. I know this sounds like a lot, but it’ll knock you off your shoes.
Instructions
Separate the eggs. (I fully understand if you move on to option 2 or 3 now.) Beat the whites with the cream of tartar until they form stiff peaks, then beat the yolks like they were talking about your mother (until they are thin as water. Add the spices and rum to the yolks, and continue stirring until incorporated. Fold the egg whites into the yolk mixture. Thicken the mixture with sugar until it has the consistency of a light batter. Serve in standard coffee mugs. In each mug, mix two tablespoons of the batter with three (or six) tablespoons of brandy or rum. Top off with milk (or milk combined with water). Grate fresh nutmeg over the surface and serve. Drink to your own resolve for getting through that recipe without throwing a mixer through the window. If you did throw a mixer through the window, drink and wait for the police.
Option two
Since Tom and Jerry spend their nights drinking everything that ends up in their hands, we can also go the simpler route. Place several bottles of clear or brown alcohol on your kitchen counter, reach out your hand, grasp a bottle, and then suck on that monkey. If you want, you can mix it with an ingredient like soda, water, Coke, air, a glass, or your liver. Or go nuts and do it with a side of milk to keep with the theme. Just make sure you put a few nails in your coffin, then hit it with a damper to calm it down.
Option three
Just quaff any flagon, tipple any toddy, slake your thirst, top off your tank, chase your anchor, and become a good ole Lushington. Chase it with milk. Same as option one, but cheaper and faster and a lot less grinding of spices. Enjoy!