Drinking with the Mob in "Cocktail Noir"

When I add a link to the "link section," (unique title!) I usually first ask permission from the new addition.

Sometimes, I forget to ask. (This is a one hell of a story so far, isn't it?)

Which reminds me, I didn't really ask Scott Deitche if I could link to his personal website and the Tampa Mafia site that all along I thought he owned but doesn't. (A quite lovely woman named Lisa Figueredo owns it.)

Anyway I am assuming it's okay with Scott, the linking, because he recently informed me of a new book coming out later this year. He thought, correctly, it would be of interest to me. By extension, I think it will be of interest to you. (Which reminds me: Lisa, I didn't ask you for permission either, sorry...)

I might as well come clean and tell you I added Nick Denmon as well (I should've added all these links a year or two ago) because he played a role behind the scenes in this needlessly complicated scenario I recount for you here.... I added Nick because he writes excellent Mafia-based fiction and is an all-around nice guy who probably can pick up women a lot easier than I can. I interviewed him a ways back, for interested parties.

Cocktail Noir: From Gangsters and Gin Joints to Gumshoes and Gimlets, available for preorder now, officially ships on November 3, 2015.

Authored by  Deitche, the book "cater[s] to lovers of the well-written word and the well-mixed drink...," a category into which I definitely include myself ("I'll have a martini, gin, straight up with extra olives, please." And it seems so would Cip, who I have linked to from the beginning and who I KNOW can pick up especially hot women easier than I can.... )

Cocktail Noir is a lively look at the intertwining of alcohol and the underworld―represented by authors of crime both true and fictional and their glamorously disreputable characters, as well as by real life gangsters who built Prohibition-era empires on bootlegged booze.    

It celebrates the potent potables they imbibed and the watering holes they frequented, including some bars that continue to provide a second home for crime writers.  

Highlighting the favorite drinks of Noir scribes, the book includes recipes for cocktails such as the Gimlet described in Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye, the Mojito Mulatta T.J. English drank while writing Havana Nocturne and the Dirty Martini favored by mob chronicler Christian Cippolini.   

Cocktail Noir also lets us in on the drinking habits of notorious organized crime figures, revealing Al Capone’s taste for Templeton Rye, Meyer Lansky’s preference for Dewar’s Scotch and Gambino family hit man Charles Carneglia’s habit of guzzling Cutty Sark.   

With black and white illustrations throughout, Cocktail Noir is as stylish and irreverent as the drinks, often larger-than-life figures and culture it explores.   

Authors Quoted Extensively: Dennis Lehane, Patrick Downey, T.J. English, Scott Burnstein, Christian Cippolini, Chriss Lyon, Gavin Schmitt.    

Authors Discussed: Mario Puzo, Gay Talese, Peter Maas, Raymond Chandler, Dashiel Hammet.

Authors Honorably Mentioned: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, Stephen King, Truman Capote.

Scott M. Deitche is the author of five books, including several on organized crime, including Cigar City Mafia: A Complete History of the Tampa Underworld, and The Silent Don: The World of Santo Trafficante Jr. 

He has also written dozens of articles for local and national magazines and newspapers, including the regular column Scott Deitche’s Libation Lounge for Cigar City Magazine, a column devoted to spirits and unusual cocktails. Scott has been featured on The Discovery Channel, The History Channel, A&E, C-SPAN, and both national and local news and radio shows. 

Scott also is one of the few writers who has donated items to the Mafia Museum in Las Vegas, and is a regularly featured guest speaker there. A high-tech, visual effects-filled true crime travel television series entitled Mobtown America, based on Scott’s popular walking tours of Mafia sites, has just started being shopped by Big Machine Productions. Scott lives in St. Petersburg, FL. with his family. Scott’s favorite cocktail is the Negroni.