First things first: Gin has medicinal properties.
Ask any British officer posted to Dehli in the 1890s. Or the gent from the East India Tea Company likewise. I’m convinced it was not quinine in the tonic water alone that beat back malaria, but the astringent, near-medicinal properties of juniper and herbs in gin. (To say nothing of robust levels of germ-killing alcohol.) Laced with a drop of lime essence — some actual limes, if you were a Navy chap combating scurvy simultaneously — gin could cure what ails you. Or prevent ‘it’ from ailing you at all.
I will resist detouring through Pink Gin. A pink gin (made so by a dash of Angostura bitters) is reputedly a cure for seasickness. Um, well, yes. Not in my book. When I sailed the billowing main (all right, the Mediterranean or Baltic seas), and felt that queasy from the tossing of an equinoctial gale, I resorted to single malt Scotch on the rocks to cure mal de mer. At least, this nightcap usually put me out like a light, and then the seasickness would pass by my stomach like a ship in the night.
Leaving aside pink gin, a tot of London dry gin — for me anyway — can cure a multitude of ailments, viz:
- Exhaustion
- Inability to fall asleep despite exhaustion
- Ruminating (related to aforementioned inability to fall asleep)
- Gyppy tummy (an unspecified gastrointestinal distress that could just be hunger or could be Something Much Worse)
- Trying times of indecision (especially in regards to what to cook to allay hunger)
Timothy used to remark on how I could trudge in the door of a workday evening, looking beat and dismal, then a half-hour and a half-ounce later, be ready to dance to the radio. I’d also likely be banging pots and pans, full of ginger for what I might cook for supper. (Which could indeed involve ginger. Another restorative for unhappy digestions.)
The air is not the sea
I have never (touch copious amounts of wood) been airsick. Unhappy, maybe, but never airsick in the way I was once comprehensively seasick. Aboard a plane, my first instinct is to ask for a gin-and-tonic, and an eye mask. Once I land, I detour through the duty-free shop for gin to see me through dreary, budget-hotel nights.
As for the seasickness, well, then I was far too young to drink gin, and besides that, the ferry was crossing the notoriously evil English Channel in broad daylight. Wherever it was five o’clock, it was nowhere near that ferry. Not even my parents were drinking gin… although on mature consideration, I bet they wished they had done. We later ascribed the mal de mer my father and I suffered to these causes:
a) the boat being a tiny, under-powered, Belgian vessel that had no business crossing anything more ambitious than a canal
b) the most atrocious Channel weather ever
c) a singularly ill-advised luncheon menu in the stuffy cafeteria (suffice it to say it involved herring, Polish garlic sausages and sauerkraut)
My dear mama sat out the whole two-hour crossing on the blustery deck, upwind of everyone else on the boat with her eyes shut. She was one of the few people besides the crew who didn’t get sick. Indeed, upon arrival back in Britain, she took charge, purchasing our Dover to London rail tickets while Dad and I sat very still and guarded the luggage. Mom then coaxed us onto yet another moving object, installed us in a cosy compartment once aboard the train, and stared down anyone rash enough to think of infringing on our recuperative privacy.
My mother has a spine of steel, but I’d bet you a 40-year-old shilling that the minute we were in our London hotel, she went directly down to the bar and had a gin on the rocks. Maybe not even a cocktail onion, all things considered.
How do biscuits come into this?
Almost everyone alive has a comfort food to go with or in place of their restorative beverage. Chicken soup tops the list, worldwide. (I read this somewhere, I’m sure.) Endless permutations of soup-ness run close seconds: ramen, miso, Bovril or beef tea. Canned tomato, but only if accompanied by a grilled cheese sandwich on white bread, using American processed cheese.
The British endorse weak Ribena or orange squash or Lucozade. (Or at least they did when we lived there.) But to go with your blandly soothing liquid, what? Digestive biscuits and rich tea biscuits likely lead the pack, but for me, the raisiny, flat-as-a-pocket-handkerchief, Garibaldi biscuit tops the list.
You can’t get them here. The imitations imported to the Korean mega-market via Singapore are poor imitations, dry and salty. A proper Garibaldi has a glossy brown top crust, a bottom crust that is firmly baked but shows little sign of the oven’s heat. Raisins well distributed into every bite. And — like Kitkats, which they in no other way resemble — a sheet of Garibaldi biscuits slides out of the packaging in five neat slices. Easy to distribute if you have four other people at the table, sipping coffees after dinner. Worth sneaking the spare if you’re in the kitchen laying out a plate for only three other guests.
They go acceptably well with gin, if that’s all your stomach will tolerate on the high seas. And both gin and Garibaldis meet the picnic-list criteria for the letter ‘g’.
Banner photo by: Josh Sorenson from Pexels