Malted milk and brandy

. . . Mr Franklin watched the stalwart figure march slowly and carefully across the pavement. He waited until the door had opened, heard the General say: ‘Hello, Shadwell, her ladyship still awake? No? Well, why don’t you and I go out and pick up a couple of girls and have a bath in Trafalgar Square fountain? No? You’ve no spunk, Shadwell — all right, malted milk and brandy, as usual . . .’


Mr American, p.392, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, brandy.

The fodder of her native heath

      We were at breakfast, which for me in my indulgent age was Russian style (sausage, brandy, and coffee and for her the fodder of her native heath: porridge, ham, eggs, black pudding, some piscine abomination called Arbroath smokies, oatcakes, rolls, and marmalade (God knows how she’s kept her figure), while we read the morning journals.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.254, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Beef tea, rump steak and beer

Hutton brought a brisk sawbones who peered and prodded at my stitches, dosed me with jalup, refused my demand for brandy to take away the taste, but agreed I might have a rump steak instead of the beef tea which they'd been spooning into me in my unconscious state. I told Hutton to make it two, with a pint of beer, and when I'd attended to them and was propped up among my pillows, pale and interesting, he elaborated on what he already told me.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.162, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Bad medicine

...the nasty young Norse God had turned into a jowly sausage-faced old buffer whose head seemed to grow straight out of his collar without benefit of neck... I tipped my tile instead, he did likewise, frowning, and a moment later he was clambering aboard and I was legging it in search of a gallon or two of brandy. Quite a turn he'd given me — but then, he always did. Bad medicine, Bismarck; bad man.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.38, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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My old tarpaulin jacket

        Wrap me up in my tarpaulin jacket, jacket,
        An’ say a poor buffer lies low, lies low,
        An’ six stalwart lancers shall carry me, carry me,
        With steps that are mournful an’ slow.

        Then send for six brandies and sodas, soda,
        An’ set ’em all in a row, row . . .


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.252, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



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Villainous two-rupee bravos

…I surveyed the company: villainous two-rupee bravos, painted harpies who should have been perched in trees, a seedy flute-and-tom-tom band accompanying a couple of gyrating nautches whom you wouldn’t have touched with a long pole, and Sikh brandy fit to corrode a bucket. I’ll never say a word against Boodle’s again, says I to myself; at least there you don’t have to sit with your back to the wall.



Flashman and the Mountain of Light, pp.170-71, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.


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Terrifying yearning

She looked at me with a truly terrifying yearning; I’d seen nothing like it since the doctors were putting the strait-jacket on my guvnor and whisking the brandy out of his reach.

Flashman and the Redskins, pp.42-43, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Keep your thumb out of it

      “Depends which ones you’re talking about,” says I. “Now, Spotted Tail was a gentleman. Chico Velasquez, on the other hand, was an evil vicious brute. But you probably never met either of ‘em. Care for a brandy?”
      He went pink. “I thank you, no. By gentlemen, I suppose,” he went on, bristling. “you mean one who has despaired to the point of submission, while brute would no doubt describe any sturdy independent patriot who resisted the injustice of an alien rule, or revolted against broken treaties—“
      “If sturdy independence consists of cutting off women’s fingers and fringing your buckskin with them, then Chico was a patriot, no error,” says I. “Mind you, that was the soft end of his behaviour. Hey waiter, another one, and keep your thumb out of it, d’ye hear?”

Flashman and the Redskins, pp.18-19, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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It’s black, it’s thick, and it makes you drunk

Their [Russian serfs] drink was as bad – bread fermented in alcohol which they called qvass (‘it’s black, it’s thick, and it makes you drunk,’ as they said), and on special occasions vodka, which is just poison. They’ll sell their souls for brandy, but seldom get it.

Flashman at the Charge, p.144, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,qvass, serfs.

Kindly offered

Well, I’ll always take a brandy when it’s kindly offered, so I fastened onto the glass and gulped a mouthful down.

Flash For Freedom!, p.145, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,brandy.

Clew up the heads

‘…here have I been keeping you in talk over these matters, when your most urgent desire has surely been for a moment privacy in which you might deliver up thanks to a merciful Heavenly Father for your delivery from all the dangers and tribulations you have undergone. Your pardon, sir.’
   My urgent need was in fact for an enormous brandy and a square meal, but I answered him with my wistful smile… ‘Indeed,’ says I, looking sadly reflective, ‘there is hardly a moment in these past few months that I have not spent in prayer.’
   He gripped my hand again, looking moist, and then, thank God, he remembered at last that I had a belly, and gave orders for food and a glass of spirits while he went off, excusing himself, to splice the binnacle or clew up the heads, I shouldn’t wonder.

Flash For Freedom!, p.120, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

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Old school house party

I could see this was the kind of house-party that wasn’t Flashy’s style at all. I was used to hunting weeks where you dined any old how, with lots of brandy and singing, and chaps p_____g in the corner and keeping all hours, and no females except the local bareback riders, as old Jack Mitton used to call them

Flash For Freedom!, p.24, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,Jack Mytton, house party.

The happy reek of brandy

We were entering what is now called the Victorian Age, when respectability was the thing; breeches were out and trousers came in; bosoms were being covered and eye modestly lowered; politics was becoming sober, trade and industry were becoming fashionable, the odour of sanctity was replacing the happy reek of brandy, the age of the Corinthian, the plunger and the dandy was giving way to the prig, the preacher and the bore.

Royal Flash, p.13, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1978.

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Less bleak

I applied myself to the brandy, and things seemed less bleak.



Flashman, p.62, Pan edition, 12th printing, 1979.

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