Intoxicated

Yorkshire, 1869. When self-made Victorian businessman Isaac Brookes returns home from his wool mill in France he could not have suspected that a chance encounter on a train would alter the gastronomical landscape of the world. But when he meets, and almost kills, Rodrigo Vermilion, a hunchback midget dressed in rags--Vermilion sees in pragmatic Isaac a grand opportunity to improve his lot in life, and becomes determined to go into business with him. Enter the Temperance Soldiers, a band of righteous social moralists who offer Vermilion the inspiration, and idea he so desperately needs. One taste of his first Temperance Ale-worse he felt sure than the ancient slime at the bottom of the pond, old frog juice, and duck droppings scooped up in a glass-and this savvy schemer with a genius for persuasion is off and running and soon convinces Isaac and his son to invest their fortune on an idea sure to appeal to Victorian sensibilities: Rhubarilla(c), a fizzy, fruity drink that will sweep the world in ways that even the irrepressible Vermilion could have imagined. A family saga, a fairy tale, a fantastical history of England and of the origins of world's favorite soft drink-INTOXICATED is a witty, and dazzling treat from a writer of boundless imagination and promise.

John Barlow is a native of West Yorkshire who has taught at universities in both England and Spain. He is the author of Eating Mammals and lives in Spain.