Throughout the 1920s, the great weird fiction writer Arthur Machen held garden parties at his home in St John’s Wood. He served his guests a cocktail that he called Dog and Duck punch. One friend described it as a “golden, harmless, seductive, suave, crystalline compound, drunk in beakers,” that “crept up quietly and sandbagged you from behind, without warning.”

What was in it? My essay on Dog and Duck punch (and Machen’s parties more generally) appears in the Spring 2018 issue of Faunus: The Journal of the Friends of Arthur Machen. If you are a member of the Friends, you have your copy. If not, join here. More on the contents at Wormwoodiana.