#i cannot recommend

Dismas was never sure where he’d heard it. Whether from the depths of a tavernhall, or from the lips of his own father at the lintel of some long distant, forgotten hearth fire.

Wherever he had heard it first, it did not stop there. Dismas frequented so many places sick with drink and suffering that is was nearly a mantra. The holy scripture of the drunken reprobates. Sometimes they added humorous, dirtier couplets or lines. Sometimes added slurrs and cursed (though that was often not intentional). Either way it was impossible for a reprobate such as Dismas to not know of the proverbial ‘Hair of the Dog’.

Every drunk had their own rituals of the day, every man and woman reliant of drink had ways of keeping sane. Dismas was no different; whiskey in the afternoon. Whiskey in the evening and Whiskey in his flask for the afternoon to follow.

He liked Whiskey. Liked the way it bit at the back of his throat and the warmth is settled in his stomach. Liquid courage on an estate full of monsters. Sure, sometimes he would partake of ale or beer (usually at a meal or while working— for the calories, you see) but Whiskey was his ever constant companion. Whiskey… or the shoe polish that Jubert passed off as it anyhow.

The mornings however were different. Dismas prided himself on not requiring a nip of whiskey in the morning. He saved another of his rituals for the morning.

Gin, Malt Vinegar, dashes of pepper and the ground power of the exotic peppers they’d only recently begun importing from the East. (It was certainly a better mix than the gunpowder some of his old brigand companions had used.) Top off with lemon, and a raw egg yolk.

It didn’t taste good. But it wasn’t meant to.

Nights were for feeling good. For drowning sorrows in the burn of booze and the laughter of others ignoring the shadows at the door. For savoring the hit of a familiar high, playing cards or dice (at the unofficial tables of course) and forgetting to worry for the evening about what horror you might see when you awoke.

The mornings were for sobering up. And there was nothing that could sober a man like the sour spicy punch of a Hair of the Dog.

Reynauld always told him a shower might have the same effect. But what did the old man know…

“I know it looks absolutely revolting.” The crusader said where he found Dismas, sitting on a stool at the bar at Jubert’s at far-too-early as far as he was concerned.

“Probably.” Dismas said with a grin and a wink, which hinted at the ghost of the night passed. “But ah well.”

He downed it in one. Savoring the slide of the yolk, the sour curdling effect on his tongue. The waft of vinegar in the nose, just enough gin to moisten his wrung dry brain, and the pepper burn that lingered after.

Reynauld made a face, but Dismas just laughed. He rapt the bar three times and swung off his stool.