Neruda. Guests had brought a folio of one kind or another, and each seemed loath to be separated from his parcel. However, they were soon too distracted by the culinary wonders that Ah Chu had assembled on the sideboard to focus on much else. Along with four varieties of rare tea and two kinds of coffee, Captain Hammond was pleased to present his own contribution. This was a seductive and inscrutable concoction that went by the dubious title of “Russian punch.” Though the more exotic ingredients included pomegranate and peach nectar, the whole recipe was a secret that depended upon the moral authority of calvados and pear brandy to make its point. If any potable could be said to replicate a wolf in a sheep’s fleece, Russian punch would fit the description quite nicely. It was the captain’s bemused contention that his secret punch could leach the meanest motives from the world’s greatest misanthropes and transform marginally moral men into archangels. The concoction was always served in small glass cups to avoid accidental inebriation.
