You may remember our delicious Scottish-themed cocktail: Caledon , which we shared on Christmas Eve in 2024. This remains one of our most popular blog posts, so we thought we would share another one for you on this All Hallow's Eve! With that in mind, I am pleased to introduce you to: The Raighvan Park , inspired by Judith Crow's novella, The Folly at Raighvan Park, which you can find here . Here are your step by step instructions for creating this gothic beverage (have we just invented the gothtail ?!) It's deliciously dark, as you might expect, with a hint of the upper-class style of the novella. You will need: 1. Port 2. Patron Xo Cafe (you could use any other coffee liqueur) 3. Soda water with lime 4. Ginger ale 5. Pepsi Max 6. Liquorice Time to put them all together... 1. Pour one shot of coffee liqueur into a large wine glass. 2. Add one shot of port. Remember, a gothic gentleman loves his port! 3. Now onto the non-alcoholic additions... include two shots of soda wat...
I'm not good at being told what to do. It's not just in writing, but in all walks of life. I don't mind guidelines - in fact, they can be very useful to creativity - but writing to someone else's criteria is another thing. So, back in 2021, when my sister Judith told me about Sapere Book's competition to write a series of books on one of their briefs, I initially ignored it. But then she said she would submit to their Age of Sail brief if I did the Medici/Borgia books. I was still on something of a high after the success of The Year We Lived , but equally stuck in a deadspot in terms of creating a book which could live up to it, so I agreed to have a go at it, the resulting story being Poisoned Pilgrimage . My research took me far away from anything I had ever written creatively. Instead, I returned to my degree days and wrapped myself in the theology of the day. And it was good to be back! My set of stories was not selected by Sapere, but it didn't matter. I...