Posted by Rodger Whitlock on November 17, 1997 at 15:07:04:
Many a time in many a book, Vance's characters sit down to some serious drinking and call for a jug of "Blue Ruin."
I've seen this in quite an early work -- The Five Gold Bands, I think -- and I've seen it in one of the Araminta books, so he's been using it as a stage prop for roughly fifty years.
Has anyone ever run across a drink in real life called "Blue Ruin" or is Vance just having us on? If someone has heard of it in a non-Vance context, what's the formula?