This is not an April Fool’s Day prank, I promise. – Indy

This Friday, April 1st, Worthless Bastard Brad Whittington is going to read a bit from his newest novel AND – if they arrive in time – everyone will receive an advance-copy paperback. He might even sign it. You can pre-order the kindle edition right now AND the prequel, Endless Vacation, will be free on Kindle from Mar 29-Apr 2.

IN ADDITION – the “We don’t make no mixed drinks” rule at the Toad & Ostrich will be suspended for one day because Brad’s friend and fellow Worthless bastard, Jeremy Grigg, invented a drink called The Defenestrated Zombie which Brad published in the book.

Defenestrated Zombies will be available at no charge. Which, incidentally, is the price of all drinks at the Toad & Ostrich.

Of course, any zombie must contain light and dark rum. Due to the Defenestration of Prague (independent research advised), we required a Czech liqueur, and Becherovka came to our aid. However, the drink as conceived by The Griggster and described by Ermen on page 219 is impossible to make, due to the largely imaginary nature of Gummidge’s Wort (although the etymology of “wort” is interesting in this context, as is a perusal of the story of Worzel Gummidge) and the entirely inadvisability of ingesting formaldehyde. (For the record, one would have to drink 200 Defenestrated Zombies to get a lethal dose of formaldehyde, whereas the alcohol would get you after 20 drinks or so.)

Consequently, I engaged the services of Chris Wall (aka Wally), gnome-at-large at Cafe Malta in South Austin.  I told him the story and charged him with the task of creating a drink that could legally be assembled and consumed. He discharged his duties admirably.

The complicating factor in this drink is the blood orange syrup. If you can’t find any, you can make your own by reducing blood orange soda.”

The Defenestrated Zombie Recipe

1 1/4 oz light rum
1/2 oz orange juice
1/2 oz cranberry juice
1/4 oz lime juice
1/4 oz Bechorovka

Mix in shaker and decant into glass. Drizzle blood orange syrup into a layer on the bottom. Float dark rum on top.

If you really, really, really have nothing to do right now and you want to read Brad’s 8 very entertaining blog posts about location-scouting for some of the events that happen in The Reluctant Saint, this is where you can do that. – Indy