It had been teeming down ever since I had arrived in Lille that November evening and, just in the few minutes it took to walk through the misty streets from my hotel to the promising looking bar I’d spotted earlier, my trench coat and trilby were soaked.  As I made my way to the bar, there was only one drink on my mind: ‘un grog’.

But the young barman, not having heard of it, turned to his older colleague for guidance. ‘Ah, je vais te montrer comment on fait un grog’, the latter said, pleased to be able to show off his expertise. And, indeed, that combination of dark rum, dark sugar, lemon juice and a slice of lemon, served in a tall glass topped up with very hot water was just the job for a night like that.

It seemed absolutely right to be arriving in a city in the north of France, with the weather changing for the worse, and choosing the perfect drink. After all, most of the Maigret novels I’d been reading for years conformed to that particular pattern: the weather would be specified early on; and the Chief Inspector would choose, and usually stick to, a drink appropriate to the weather.  And what’s better than ‘un grog’ when it’s rainy and cold?

In fact, the very first novel to feature Maigret, ‘Pietr le Letton’ (1931), includes a scene where he arrives at a hotel in Fécamp with the ‘Lithuanian’ of the title, both of them soaked to the skin; and the first reaction of the owner, Monsieur Léon, is to say that what they need is ‘Un grog, hein ?… Et tassé !’ (How about a hot toddy? Really strong?).  And in a later novel (whose title I’ve forgotten) Maigret arrives home at his flat in the Boulevard Richard Lenoir on a rainy evening to be greeted by Madame Maigret with the announcement that she has hot water ready on the stove to make him ‘un grog.’ (I recall that she stands the spoon upright in the glass before pouring in the boiling water so it doesn’t crack the glass).

But why I am thinking of Maigret at the moment, indeed have had him on my mind for several days? What sparked it off, I think, was watching a rerun of ‘The Singing Detective’, with Michael Gambon as Philip Marlow (without an ‘e’), popping up as his character’s fictional private eye (yes, in trench coat and trilby, as I swear I was wearing that night in Lille), that same Michael Gambon who made a pretty good stab at playing Maigret himself back in the early 90s.

Then, at our friends’ place in the Alps, I found a copy of ‘Maigret aux Assises’: Maigret in Court (1960) which I read quickly, stopping only to make notes of the times that the Commissaire has a drink.

It’s mid June, he is in Paris on his home turf, under no particular pressure, and is abstemious by his standards.  Looking at the accused in the stand he recalls days when he had taken a break from the interview and the two of them had sandwiches and beer, ‘en bavardant comme des copains’ (chatting like mates).  Then, when Court rises at noon, he and Inspector Lapointe go to the cafe which is part of the law court building (‘la buvette du Palais’) for a quick beer.  That evening he is too busy to go home for dinner, so eats at the (fictional) Brasserie Dauphine, near his office in the Quai des Orfèvres, ordering ’un petit vin de la Loire’, chosen because he and his wife had just bought a retirement home in that region, at Meung-sur-Loire, where they had been spending their summer holidays for years.  He is busy the next day as well, so has sandwiches and beer sent up from the Brasserie Dauphine. And that’s it: a couple of beers, some white wine, spread over three days; hardly worth mentioning.

Intrigued to see if this was typical of the Chief Inspector’s intake of alcohol, I bought three second hand Maigret novels from a ‘bouquiniste’ near the Pont Neuf, while we stayed in Paris for three days on our way back from the Alps, and set to.

The first was ‘Le chien jaune’: The yellow dog (1931), one of the few Maigret books without his name in the title,. As in ‘Pietr le Letton’ (published in the same year), he travels outside Paris, in fact has been posted temporarily to Britanny, and the crime he investigates, an attempted murder, takes place in the port of Concarneau.  He starts off moderately, with a bottle of beer in the evening, a ‘demi’  (small glass of draught beer) the following lunch-time, and another demi that evening.  Next day he invites Inspector Leroy for a pre-lunch drink, suggesting they have a pernod (a brand of ‘pastis’, an aniseed flavoured drink normally taken with water), which is what the group of men who congregate at the cafe of the Hotel de l’Amiral (one of whom must be the guilty party) regularly have as an aperitif.   That afternoon he is invited home by the mayor for a cup of tea, which turns into a couple of whiskies once they are ensconced in the mayor’s elegant study.  He walks home, finding the hotel ‘en désordre’ as a result of the presence of a number of journalists, grabs a glass of unspecified liquor from a vacated table, drains it down in one, and goes up to bed.

Next morning he wakes up in a good mood, the weather is fine and he appears to have worked out who he will be arresting.  Around 11.00 o’clock, as a reward, he orders a glass of local ‘marc’ (a strong alcohol distilled from the skins, pulp, seeds, and stems of grapes after pressing for wine), and drinks it down ‘avec un visible plaisir’ (with obvious pleasure).   Total:  a bottle of beer, two small glasses of draught beer, a pernod, two (presumably) large whiskies, a glass of something or other, a glass of marc, plus whatever (unspecified) he has with his meals.

Next I read ‘Maigret chez le ministre’: Maigret at the Minister’s (1954) which, admittedly, is set in Paris; but this case - for only the second time in his career -  involves him in the world of politics, (a document has been stolen, which could bring an end to several careers if the contents are made public), and he is ill at ease and, sometimes, out of his depth.

(Day 1). Even before he arrives home to discover that the Minister has been ringing him, he has been drinking: firstly, dining with his boss at the Brasserie Dauphine, then stopping off with some colleagues for a beer on the way home.

He discovers that the Minister is very similar to him, in physique and background, both of rural stock, Maigret’s father having been land agent for a family of the lower nobility. So it is not surprising that the Minister gets out a bottle of what he describes as ‘l’eau de vie de mon pays que mon père distille chaque automne’ (an eau de vie from my part of the country which my father distills every autumn; ‘eau de vie’ being a colourless brandy-type alcohol distilled from something other than grapes; cherries or plums, typically.  And the Minister is not stingy with his alcohol.

(Day 2).  Maigret wakes up with a bit of a mouth on him, needing several coffees before leaving home. On the way to work he decides he needs a hair of the dog and decides to have ‘un coup de blanc’ (a glass of white wine) before going to the Quai des Orfèvres. In the afternoon, still with a bit of a hangover, he goes out to the Brasserie Dauphine,  for a swift ‘demi’  before returning to work. But he sees Inspector Janvier on the way back and asks him ‘Tu as envie d’un verre?’ (fancy a drink?) and they both head back to the bar for a beer.  Lucas turns up, his boss offers him a demi, but he prefers a Pernod.  Later, Maigret gestures to the waiter to bring them another round of the same but changes his mind, asking for a Pernod, too.

(Day 3). Maigret and Lapointe are about to interview the inhabitants of a block of flats but, before starting his half, Maigret decides he wants a drink and, when Lapointe turns his invitation down, finds the nearest bar, orders a vin blanc, but immediately changes it to a Pernod.   ‘Cela  s’harmonisait mieux avec son humeur et le temps, avec l’odeur de ce petit bar propret où il semblait qu’il ne venait jamais personne‘ (It went with his mood and the weather, as well as with the smell of this nice clean little bar where nobody seemed to come.) The pernod goes down so well that he has a second before going back to start his share of the interviews.

That evening, in order to meet one of the politicians involved in the case, he has dinner in the Filet de Sole, a much more fashionable restaurant than he is used to, where he orders a half-bottle of ‘pouilly’ (presumably pouilly fumé, a white wine from the Loire region, since he is having fish) then a ‘fine’ (short for ‘fine champagne cognac’) with his coffee.

After a quick trip back to the Quai, he goes to visit an old friend (from the Sûreté) at his apartment where his wife gets out ‘le cruchon de vieux calvados’ (the stone bottle of calvados, an apple brandy from Normandy). Much later that night, before heading out of Paris to look for the prime suspect, he and Janvier stop by the Brasserie Dauphine for a pernod and sandwiches. Near their destination Maigret goes into a bar to ask where their man’s  place is and  has ‘un verre d’alcohol’, an unspecified eau de vie.

Finally, with everything sorted out, Maigret goes at 3.30 in the morning to the minister’s place to let him know the good news, and accepts a final ‘verre d’alcohol … un pretexte a s’asseoir un moment, l’un devant l’autre’ (a final glass of alcohol, an excuse just to sit down opposite each other for a moment).

Whew!  That adds up to:

Wine: whatever he drank with his boss the first evening; the glass of white next morning;  the half bottle of pouilly in the Filet de Sole.

Beer: the demi on the way home before seeing the minister; the demi at the Brasserie Dauphine the next afternoon, swiftly followed by another with Janvier back at the Brasserie.

Pernod: switches to pernod at the Brasserie Dauphine on the second day;  fancies a white wine the following morning, but has a couple of pernods instead; has another with sandwiches in the Brasserie Dauphine before heading out to the country with Janvier (who, luckily, is driving).

Cognac: has an excellent ‘fine champagne cognac’ with his coffee at the posh restaurant.

Eau-de-vie: an unspecified number of glasses on the first evening, enough to leave him with a hangover next morning; an unspecified ‘verre d’alcohol’ at the country bar; a final glass to celebrate with the Minister.

So Maigret, when feeling out of his depth, tends not only to drink more, but to change his mind about what he fancies, even switching drinks in mid-session.

And things get even worse in the fourth and final book I read as part of my research into ‘Maigret and alcohol’.  This one was ‘L’ami d’enfance de Maigret’: Maigret’s childhood friend (1968) and this time the reason is not that he is out of his depth, or in an unfamiliar place; even worse, he appears unsure if his feeling of loyalty towards this fellow pupil from his primary school days is clouding his judgment.

(Note that, despite the title of the book, Florentin, the man who comes to Maigret to announce that his girlfriend has been shot, was not even a real friend back then, and the Commissaire, who hasn’t seen him for some 20 years, even has difficulty calling him ‘tu’ - as is usual between old school mates - especially as this particular one appears to be the prime suspect in a murder case).

Day 1  (Wed)  While the stretcher is being unloaded at the crime scene, he goes  across to a bar for a quick demi standing up at the comptoir.  Later he goes to another bar with Inspector Florentin and has two demis at the start of the rush hour.

Day 2  (Thur)  A nice fresh morning and Maigret seems to be in a good mood. ‘Il avait l’air de se promener en humant l’air du matin’ (He looked as if he was walking along just breathing in the morning air).  He passes an old-fashioned bistrot where wine is being delivered and asks what type it is. The owner  of the bar says it’s Sancerre. ‘Je suis du coin et je le fais venir de chez mon beau-frère‘ (That’s where I’m from and I get my brother-in-law to send me some). ‘Servez m’en un verre’  (I’ll have a glass of that), says M. and likes it so much he has another.

In the evening stops off at the Brasserie Dauphine ‘pour prendre un verre au comptoir’ (to have a glass at the bar). Finishes it off and says, ‘Remettez-moi ça’ (Same again). Dinner at home, where, presumably, he has wine with the meal.

Day 3  (Fri)  Goes to the Brasserie Dauphine for lunch, where the ‘patron’ suggests ‘une carafe de mon petit rosé’ to go with the blanquette de veau.    The coffee is ‘accompagné du petit verre de calvados que le patron lui offrait invariablement’ (comes with the little glass of calvados the patron always gave him).

After dinner, at home, ‘il dégusta deux petits verres de l’acohol de framboise que sa belle-soeur leur envoya d’Alsace’ (he drank two little glasses of the raspberry eau-de-vie his sister-in-law sent from Alsace).   cf, the eau-de-vie the Minister, in the previous book, was sent by his father.

Day 4 (Sat) Quiet lunch at home.

Day 5 (Sun) Despite being in a bad mood, Maigret agrees to go for a drive in the country, where the traffic and a lousy restaurant meal don’t help.  Presumably he has wine at lunch (as Madame Maigret does the driving), as well as with dinner at home.

Day 6 (Mon)    Still uncertain about what to do. (‘Il continuait à tâtonner’, which is the equivalent, here, of ‘he was still groping in the dark’).  Later, in his office, he just sits there running through all the hypotheses he had been working out while out driving the day before.  Then it comes to a head

‘Presque honteusement, il ouvrit le placard où il gardait toujours une bouteille de cognac. Elle n’était pas là pour lui mais il en avait besoin, parfois, pour un client qui s’effondrait au moment des aveux.  Il n’était pas effondré. Ce n’était pas lui qui devait passer aux aveux. Il n’en but pas moins une large gorgée  à meme le goulot.’

(Almost shame-facedly, he opened the cupboard where he always kept a bottle of cognac.  It wasn’t there for him, but he sometimes needed it for a suspect who broke down when finally confessing his guilt. He hadn’t broken down. He wasn’t the one who was about to confess. But that didn’t stop him taking a big swig straight from the bottle).

Later, one of the suspects arrives with his lawyer, and Maigret ‘aurait donné gros pour un verre de bière fraîche ou meme une nouvelle lampée de cognac’ (would have given anything for a glass of cold beer or even another swig of brandy).

Day 7 (Tue)

When it is finally over, the next morning, he tells the juge d’instruction (the examining magistrate) that he will write up his report and let him have it by the end of the day, adding that it is almost midday.

‘Vous avez faim?’  (‘You’re hungry?’, said the judge)

‘Soif’, avoua Maigret. (‘Thirsty’, admitted Maigret.)

Finally, he invites his team to go with him to the Brasserie Dauphine where, instead of his usual ‘demi’, he orders

Une bière …... Dans le plus grand verre que vous ayez …

(A beer ..... in the largest glass you’ve got ! ....)

So Maigret, under great stress, needs a secret drink to give him the mental strength needed to bring the case to a satisfactory conclusion, but ends the book with a final, celebratory drink, this time in public, with his trusted and loyal subordinates.

And me, did I mix my drinks in Lille that rainy November?  No I did not.    Back in the bar, late the next morning, I was about to order a café crème when the young barman, recognising the man in the trench-coat and trilby, called out ‘Ah, je vais préparer le grog de Monsieur!’  Well, I couldn’t let a young man down, could I!