Did you know that John Rambo was inpired by a Season In Hell by Arthur Rimbaud. Also David Morrell, First Blood’s author, was looking for a name for his heroe and his wife brought him some apple: Rambo’s Apples. Anyway, Rimbaud was not born in Bowie, Arizona like John Rambo but in Charleville, a city dear to my heart, in the Ardennes and for fans of Nine Princes in Amber from Zelazny. So let’s see why that knife could be a Rimbaud’s knife.

As you can notice, they are dust… No, I mean you can notice the “Drunken” texture designed for a high performance grip: a wave pattern. There is a poem from Arthur Rimbaud named “Le Bateau Îvre” -“The Drunken Boat”. This poem is famous because, at least in French, its verses are built like waves and you can feel in your guts, the fear of a sailor on a boat going out of control in the middle of a tempest. (“The poem describes the drifting and sinking of a boat lost at sea in a fragmented first-person narrative saturated with vivid imagery and symbolism.” dixit Wikipedia. ” Rimbaud, then aged 16, wrote the poem in the summer of 1871 at his childhood home in Charleville in Northern France. Rimbaud included the poem in a letter he sent to Paul Verlaine in September 1871 to introduce himself to Verlaine. Shortly afterwards, he joined Verlaine in Paris and became his lover. Rimbaud was inspired to write the poem after reading Jules Verne‘s novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, which had recently been published in book form, and which is known to have been the source of many of the poem’s allusions and images. Another Verne novel, The Adventures of Captain Hatteras, was likely an additional source of inspiration.” More there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Bateau_ivre).
Rambo was a very young poet genius but the second half of his life he was a “blade runner”, also a weapon’s and spices’ retailer in the Red Sea and Abyssinie Africa, a true adventurer. Again you can read is incredible life here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Rimbaud

But there is more link with John Rambo’s character freedom and survival:
“After studying several languages (german, italian, spanish), he went on to travel extensively in Europe, mostly on foot. In May 1876 he enlisted as a soldier in the Dutch Colonial Army to get free passage to Java in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). Four months later he deserted and fled into the jungle. He managed to return incognito to France by ship; as a deserter he would have faced a Dutch firing squad had he been caught.”

So back to the Dmitry Sinkevich’s Drunken, and its poetic pattern, name and … price. As you can notice, this is not huge folder but it deliver a tremendous blade length for its size. The blade is shape is beautifully flat ground and is gently bevelled on the spine. Another oozing qualities knife and of course it is justifying its high price. This is not a flash batch like the Bombshell but a regular Spyderco release.
Again I need to thank Geoffrey from Normandeep.fr who has sent me his own Drunken for me to have a taste. Actually I was very surprised in a good way.
It is a light (the titanium scale is “webbed” to reduce weight) and solid knife with a tanked RIL mechanism equiped with a steel interface, absolutely well balanced, alive in your hand. It’s a looker, you can gaze for hours: a true gem made in Taichung.

The big issue with that near to perfect knife is the clip. I have noticed it when I found myself not able to insert the clip in my trouser.

As you can see, the lip of the pocket is getting caught between the hole in “step” in the titanium scale and the clip.

Unless I’m helping it with my index finger by lifting the clip… which is also pointy… I can’t clip it.
Another issue pointed by our friend Alexandre Constantinoff in the Spyderco Fan Club France on Facebook is…

The one-screw-clip got some serious lateral play. And that’s for a knife that price is a shame especially coming from Spyderco which are the first to promote clips for more than 30 years.

As you can see Geoffrey’s Drunken got its clip already already marked and he told me he will find a solution to suit his need.

Here is the Drunken with two very similar Spyderco releases: the PPT on the left and the Spydiechef. The PPT Sprint Run share a S90V Blade and a Carbon Fiber/Titanium handle and unusual clip and the Spydiechef is really a brother in design.

They are a lot in common with those two, don’t you think ? From the side of the hole to the shape of the blade and the handle…

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Actually you can notice the Spydiecheff clip is perfect, it goes far from the cut slab and the deep carry wire clip is perhaps the best clip in the Spyderco line.

So the Drunken in use is also very pleasant. The action is not especially smooth but you feel the solid lock with a loud KLAK once engaged.
Then the handle is even more confortable than the one of the Spydiechef, less blocky with its facets and bevels. The large pivot screw is great for shocking up the knife and the angle of the blade is providing a lot of power and control in the cuts. If the clip’s issue was forgotten, we could have here one of the best Spyderco ever release with zero compromise in terms of pleasure to use. Just that pointy shaggy ugly clip which ruins the experience and that’s a real problem for a knife at that price.
But, oh, what a beautiful geometrically handle…

And a really beautiful knife.

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