My second unexpected run-in
I don’t think the Beef Fizz has ever come up before in a comic, so I’ll just direct you to the source material and you can make your own. Let us know how you get on in the comments. I don’t know how this story got so beef broth obsessed.
If I’m going to drink beef broth mixed with ginger ale, it damn well also needs to have some vodka in it.
Just don’t forget the lemon juice!
That drink will just keep on improving as the vodka to beef broth/ginger ale ratio approaches infinity.
Or you could use the beef broth to make a nourishing stew accompanied by a nice glass of vodka, ginger ale, and lemon juice.
I wonder why they are heading to the tack room if they intend going by car…
I can only assume the stables also contain Bitsy’s weapons store, preferably in a secret agent-style hidden section
Lottie’s Reichenbach moment will probably involve a surprise-use of equine supplies. Please let it be a lunge whip. A crop? A quirt? A slapper bat?
If you’re talking tack it has to be the eggbutt snaffle, a loose ring just wouldn’t do in a situation like this.
I had to look up “eggbutt snaffle” – out of context I would have thought it the name of a dance craze or something.
Really?
I thought that it was a sex toy.
It must have something to do with Equipment They Will Need (Or Might Need) but their plan is secret for now, so there’s only guessing.
Well, usually, in situations like these in an adventure story like this, there is a moment of getting the gear together for the Climactic Confrontation! Usually in a montage staged with Dramatic Music!
You could be writing screen plays for Movies and TV! (But I think it will remain a secret until it surprises us.)
How do I zoom in to read the comic on mobile? My eyes are old
I just use my thumbs to zoom in, i.e. enlarge the whole page.
If you’re like me then the standard mobile zoom function just does not work on this site for some reason.
If you open the image menu and chose “open image in new tab” you can zoom in on that
I fixed this once for everybody but I don’t know if I somehow broke it again. I installed a plugin specifically for the purpose, I am not sure what else I can do. I don’t own a device I can’t zoom in on the main page on so I cannot test it. I think it’s an Android-specific issue.
I usually view this site on a desktop computer, but by chance I was looking at this page on an Android about 12 hours ago and the usual two-finger expand gesture worked fine for me then.
¯\(o.°)/¯
I am also on Android and have no probs with your site. Could be specific to a browser variant
Also you are very brave for being your own tech guy
*paws shamelessly at the hem of your robe for the nth time*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKf40CLF9MU
DROP IT RAW STYLES, DJ TACKLEFORD
If you listen, this song answers the question of why I do all my own tech support. “It’s the money”
I do have this issue on my Galaxy S21+ phone, but the simple workaround is to hit ‘Prev” and then hit ‘Next’, and then zoom works just fine. It looks like zoom is enabled on the specific comic pages (where the URL includes the name of the comic), but not on the home page.
It’s your viewport meta. You should have: meta name=”viewport” content=”width=device-width, initial-scale=1″
But you have: meta name=”viewport” content=”initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no” id=”view_meta”
And by you, I mean John. ‘meta name=”viewport” content=”initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no” id=”view_meta”‘ site’s viewport metatag.
*is the site’s metatag.
Sorry, got to typing too fast.
Thank you Chris. The likelihood of me picking apart the ancient WordPress theme and the interoperative plugin that makes the ancient theme responsive is, sadly, zero, but I appreciate your attention and effort. I also have another plugin installed that is meant to fix this but apparently doesn’t. We’re 126 comments deep on this comic. No one is ever going to read any of these posts.
To paraphrase young Lottie at the pool:
“I’ll take that challenge!”
Well, no one SANE, at any rate.
Alaric, I resemble that remark.
Oh I actually *can* zoom in now. I didn’t realise this had been fixed.
Thanks, John!
On mobile browsers, you have to find the accessibility settings for “force enable zoom” or similar
You can zoom in if it’s horizontal and not vertical
It’s tack room, not tac room.
Could be short for “Tactical”
Now I want to see the days when Bitsy threw down
*Begins chanting “SUBPLOT” at length, alone*
Mind if I join in?
Not alone!
I bet back in the day, Bitsy had real Emma Peel energy.
“James Bond? Yes, of course I knew that boy. A bit of a cad really. A hot head, and never the faintest idea of what he was supposed to be doing. We were always having to clean up after him…”
Yes! THOSE were the days! When they called her Bitsy Dynamite! It was those Asian chaps who got her started (breaking bricks and the like) but she became a girl nobody would mess with or suffer the consequences!
Her callsign in Her Majesty’s Secret Service was The Itsy Bitsy Spider.
Bitsy has had no less than eight evil doppelgangers at different times in her life. Some of them still send her Christmas cards.
I suspect she said it just to calm Lottie down, but hey, who knows? With Bitsy, anything is possible.
A more attentive fan than me probably knows the provenance of Lottie’s jersey and will enlighten those of us with poorer memories.
I wonder the same, I don’t recall Lottie being into sports and it looks like she’s wearing one of her old jerseys.
Maybe one of her sister’s old jerseys?
I do not know what Bitsy’s plan will be, but I’ll wager it involves her Father’s service revolver.
If John isn’t careful these comics may turn into graphic novels!
Was her father named Chekov?
Her father shot Chekhov.
With a gun that was first seen hanging above the mantlepiece in act 1, no doubt.
Absolutely!
Well, now you’ve done it! We need to see a limited series of the dowager in her prime, fighting crime, righting wrongs, engaged in romance and intrigue. Illustrated by P Craig Russell, since he seems to be free now. And Bob Dylan. He needs to be in there somewhere. Don’t ask me why.
I’m sorry but I’m going to have to ask you why.
The answer, my friend, is… well, you know.
Reminds me of Jim Harrison’s description of a lunch with Orson Welles: “You said you were curious about my meals with Orson Welles, who of course, is a bit of a trencherman. The most memorable was at Ma Maison (the restaurant with the unlisted phone number out there in Glitzville). The two of us were accompanied by a beautiful Hungarian countess who left in either boredom or disgust halfway through the meal. You see, Mike, she was slender and could not comprehend our great, sad hearts choked as they are with fatty deposits. Orson began by clearing his palate with a half dozen bull shots in quick succession.”
He was, indeed, quite the bullshotter
I originally misread this as “Jim Henson” and was rather surprised.
That would explain why the Muppets all had such huge mouths.
Same.
She said the title!!! AAAAAHHHHHH
The title came up a few pages ago. Presumably Lottie mentioned it to Bitsy between this page and the last one. https://badmachinery.com/comic/extended-permanently/
Oh, right.
Not exactly hard-boiled detective work (warming up the Bentley) but it will have to do!
Perhaps a bit more like Mrs. Peel work.
Emma, your zippered leather jumpsuit legacy will never be forgotten! Shake your head one more time as a sign you’re only getting started!
My gut feeling is that Bitsy was a member of a (possibly unofficial) adventuring/crime fighting/mystery solving group of some sort when she was younger. I’d like to think Mrs Clovis (or possibly the future Mrs Clovis) was part of the same group, but it’s hard to tell what their relative ages are- different people age at vastly different rates, after the first few decades.
I’m not sure Mrs. Clovis would have been in the same circle exactly but I’m sure they’ve teamed up in the past to tackle some folk horror doings in the Cornwall countryside.
Yes. Something officially unofficial. I wonder, is Bitsy sizing up a new recruit?
I think beef is just in the air these days- https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-15/03-me-and-who-you-say-i-was-yesterday/steven/
I’ve herd of flying pigs.
It’s the beefy eggo you really want to watch out for.
“Beefy Eggo”. Good rapper name!
Lovely to see how fascinated Lottie is with Bitsy’s exceptional life, it’s a great fortune that she has experience with such weird situations. They will surely find a way to beat the Skelottie. But will they be able to capture her?
Did the concept of a Beef Fizz come from harder times? A sense of the perverse? I am desperately trying to understand why anyone would ever imagine such a drink.
Perhaps a form of culinary PTSD following the Great War…
You don’t remember those classic sodas, Beef-Up and Dr. Ox?
This would make sense! Just when you thought it couldn’t possibly get any worse, someone fixed you a Beef Fizz!
I think it comes from the old idea that broth has restorative properties. It’s not so much a tasty beverage that you drink for enjoyment. It’s more of a medicinal tonic that you choke down because it will (in theory) help you to recover sooner.
Ginger ale is frequently approached in the same way, by those not into recreational use.
Yes indeed. The restorative effects of broth and of ginger, plus some lemon to kill the taste.
Sounds like an example of the persistance of old victorian ethics: the call to fortify both the body and the character (by keeping a stiff upper lip while you drink a perfectly disgusting beef cocktail).
Don’t think too hard about a lot of non “fufu” mixed drinks, i.e. “Bloody Mary”. You may begin to realize that ‘tastes good’ is generally one of many potential COLORS that may be applied from the drink palette. Gin and tonic doesn’t exactly “taste good”, per se, but depending on the gin it may have various felicities.
Something about this drink makes me think it tastes like, or is intended to remind one of, an Asian soup. I can imagine that you could had some hot sauce (probably sweet-hot) and not do violence to the, uh, constitution of the drink.
Vodka seems the right choice to “sharpen” the brew.
“The gin and tonic wasn’t always the recreational beverage we know today! In fact, it was originally used in India to make quinine palatable. Which just goes to show you what masochists the British are…this basically is the equivalent of Grey Goose and cough syrup.” –Three Panel Soul
Actually it was first used as a medical diuretic
Something I found to be a poor recommendation and also consistent with the gins I’ve tried (I am not a fan)
I suspect from the drawing of what could be a Scottish crofting/cottage that Beef Fizz might have been a posh drink for the Scots when vistors arrived marking a dramatic change from their normal diet of beef broth, beef, beef and nettle salad, and beef surprise (haggis)
It would be a surprise to find beef in a haggis.
Think of it as trying to find oysters in rocky mountain oysters
Beef surprise?
Yes… Surprise – It’s not beef!
Lottie seems to have lost her will to live in the last panel (being too polite to refuse her host’s beverage has disadvantages.) In the previous panel after just sampling the drink she’s beginning to slide. It’s a good thing they’re going to another room so she can pour it out somewhere on the way.
This, and most such horrors of the mid-twentieth century, sprang from the minds of Madison Avenue ad men (Mad Men) and their ilk.
The illustration accompanying this recipe seems to suggest that beef fizz is the drink of choice for pre-industrial yeoman farmers.
Finally, a recipe. I’ve ruined five soadastreams with oxtail soup.
sodastreams. gah. Well, the Alpine[1] van deliveries didn’t include Cowca Cola? Ungulade? Doctor Heifer? anyway.
[1] https://www.doyouremember.co.uk/memory/alpine-soft-drinks
Since I now firmly have it that the Dowager represents the light side bovril and Beate represents the dark side bovril, I keep hearing John Williams’ Yoda leitmotif from The Empire Strikes Back as I read this strip.
Bovril: a force somewhat removed from nature.
Dave Berg’s “The Lighter Side of… Bovril”, the lost Mad Magazine comic that will forever remain a mystery.
We skipped the light strathspey
Downed some Bovril at the door
I was feeling kind of seasick
When the dowager brought more
The beef was humming harder
And the ceiling flew away
When I called out for another drink
Then Bitsy brought a tray
And so it WAAAAAAAAS
I’m pretty sure Beef Fizz was brought to us by Mitchell’s.
(If it’s not Mitchell’s, get back in the truck).
That’s fizzy beef wine!
Your comics have convinced me that masochism is an underlying theme – nay, a veritable force – in British cuisine.
Reminds me of that Douglas Adams bit about pub grub, the sadness and moisture of the sandwich, the depressing presence of “all the salad,” and the sausages, which according to Mr. Adams were there “for those who know what they have done, and wish to atone.”
I will admit to never being entirely quite right with the universe since Douglas Adams died in such untimely fashion.
Died? He simply transferred to another dimension.
The mice came for him, or perhaps the dolphins.
Or perhaps those other ones who say they come from so very far away.
We are, nevertheless, the poorer for his loss.
-Much poorer if he had never been on this small blue planet.
Spam! You forgot Spam! Fried into a greasy brick Spam!
There’s a reason Mr. Blobby always had that look in his eyes
The beef fizz face on Lottie in panel 5 is exactly how a beef fizz tastes.
Some all-time great Charlotte faces in this storyline – two on this page at least.
Please don’t let anything happen to Bitsy OR Sandra. I’m still unsettled about the old lady who walked into the ocean after the selkie story.
I’m surprised it’s called a beef fizz given that it’s only one part ginger ale to 4 parts broth (at least, I’m assuming those are 16 oz cans).
Even at those proportions, a beef fizz fizzes more than beef usually fizzes.
The novelty being not that it is done well, but that it is done at all.
You’re clearly not eating at the right British steakhouses.
Being a fan of real Chinese Orange Beef, I can see this being better made with orange juice and a dash of oyster sauce. Perhaps with a spritz of sparkling water to spice it up. Garnish with some Sichuan Pepper corns.
You could have suggested anything as additional ingredients and that would have been a better made drink
Beef fizz with kale?
Actually, I suspect that might even improve the beef fizz… But it would be a waste of kale.
I’m very worried that the beef fizz is somehow a sign that the Dowager and the Doppelganger are in cahoots.
Rejected story title: The Bovril Connection.
Some day we’ll find it, the Bovril connection, the fizzies, the lemons, and BEEEEEEEEEF
Nah, she’s just fighting fire with fire.
I looked up a review of “Beef Fizz” in The Milwaukee Record. Here it is in its entirety: “ Shockingly, Beef Fizz wasn’t as bad as we expected. It was worse. Much, much worse. The broth—the primary ingredient in the drink—had the faint odor of dry cat food. It was sort of masked by the lemon juice and ginger ale, but the divergent flavors of sweet, sour, salty and…beefy still didn’t seem any more appealing once we had it in a chilled pint glass full of ice. To be honest, the first sip wasn’t terrible. We suspect that was because the ginger and lemon separated from the broth, resting near the top of the glass. Once we stirred it up thoroughly and drank some of the darker/beefier portion, it was apparent: this was wack. We couldn’t think of something we’d want to drink less after partaking in an outdoor activity.”
Sloppy steaks done classic style.
NO SLOPPY STEAKS
Marmite fizz is even better.
Marmite Fizz: the best-kept secret of British cuisine, buried in a deep vault with a curse thrown over it?
And a sign on the door that say “beware of the leopard”?
Don’t worry; the leopards are all over here eating people’s faces.
That beef fizz looks like something that belongs in Lilek’s Gallery of Regrettable Food.
https://lileks.com/institute/gallery/
Is there such a thing as chicken fizz?
After great* thought on the concept of Bitsy as Lottie’s mentor, I have concluded that Beate wanted a mentor and asked the great Kendo Miyamoto to mentor her. After she was rejected and discovered that Kendo san wished to mentor Lottie instead, Beate exploded with rage…
Then she leveraged her violent outburst to frame Lottie
…and the rest we know
*a moment’s
American bouillon — any flavor, not just beef — is unusably salty. “Soup base” is better, and the chicken flavor can actually be used if one does not exceed the recommended dosage, but the beef variety would not improve anything, unless one were willing to use the word “improve” with the same bitter falsity as characterizes the product itself. We must think that Bovril is in some ways better than any of these, but my imagination was formed and constrained by the US products so long ago that it is not up to the task.
American bouillon is to actual soup stock as American cheese is to actual cheese. An approximation at best.
I think the dowager is the mastermind behind all of this.
I am also of this opinion.
I remember when they won the Eurovision…
Is that The Nero Wolfe Cook Book?