It doesn't stick around long, his grin--like someone bursting through a door only to discover themselves in the wrong house--but for its brief duration it's unabashedly delighted.

Resuming his habitual mien (that of mild, detached amusement), and at the stranger's prompting, Alan attends to his scotch. With all apparent seriousness, he turns the glass in a slow circle, observing the play of the liquid against the sides. He lifts the scotch to his nose, inhales deeply and with an air of rumination.

Finally, he sips.

"I find it difficult to believe," he says, allowing himself a grimace and choosing his words as deliberately as he'd sampled the liquor, "there could be anything worse than this."