The Cocktails of Inspiration

Anyone who knows me knows I am not much of a drinker. I think that people have a hard time controlling themselves when they drink and quickly become a-holes, and I do not want to be that person. 

That said, I love a cocktail, and I might have one while out before switching to a drink that looks suspiciously like a cocktail but contains no alcohol, which I call the Hattie.

The Hattie (Basics, Beverages, serves 1)

• Ice
• 1-part cranberry juice
• 2- parts soda of some sort (diet ginger ale, 7-up, or soda water, as is available and desired.)
• A squeeze of lime 

1. Put ice in rocks glass. 
2. Add juice, then soda. 
3. Squeeze lime and drop in a glass. 
4. Stir or at least swirl. 

What you may not know about me is that I have a love affair with the bohemians of late nineteenth-century Paris and used to fantasize about life there in the time of Renoir, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso, Verlaine, Zola, Stein, and Debussy. The list could go on. 

Their creativity was fueled by the pursuit of pleasure, a love of all things sensual, their experience of the world at large, and, of course, the Green Fairy. The movie Moulin Rouge features a beautiful musical number exploring this lifestyle. 

I sit at my door, smoking a cigarette and sipping my absinthe, and I enjoy every day without a care in the world. 

— Paul Gaughin

Absinthe is the drink of artists and intellectuals. It sharpens rather than dulls the wits while still effusing one with the warm glow of ethanol. The juices of creativity flow within, and ultimately, they must find an outlet. 

It is as if the first diviner of absinthe had been a magician intent upon a combination of sacred drugs that should cleanse, fortify, and perfume the human soul.

— Aleister Crowley

I had to learn to drink this elixir but faced the terrible conundrum that I absolutely detest licorice, which it is flavored.

An acquaintance within my fraternal order had a reputation for being an excellent mixologist and an absinthe drinker. So, I wrote to him out of the blue and asked him to help me learn to enjoy absinthe at our upcoming national conference (in 2013, held in Sacramento). He jumped at the challenge and warmly agreed to help me overcome my block. 

I could never quite accustom myself to absinthe, but it suits my style so well.

— Oscar Wilde

He brought three bottles of fancy absinthe, some other ingredients I need to remember, and a bottle of honey.  I sampled the different kinds straight, then with the classic water, sugar, juice, and finally added honey. It became more palatable when sweetened and diluted, but it was not enough to have the classic way; I required more doctoring. 

He and his friends left, leaving me with three bottles of absinthe and a honey bear. Two days later, I took the train to San Diego to celebrate a holiday with friends and then finally returned to Portland, where I lived all too briefly. 

On the train, I experienced what is called con-drop. I was all alone, separated from those I love and enjoy, and I read about everyone getting home from the conference and posting all the pictures they had taken on their trip. 

I got bored and decided to revisit the Green Fairy and began Googling absinthe recipes. I discovered  the following recipe by Ernest Hemingway, published initially in a 1935 cocktail book:

Death in the Afternoon (Beverages, serves one)

• Pour one jigger of absinthe into a Champagne glass. Add iced Champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness. Drink three to five of these slowly.

This sounded fabulous but not sweet enough to make it enjoyable to me, so I invented a drink with what I had on hand or was available on the Amtrak. 

Death on a Sunny Day (Beverages, serves one)

• 2-parts absinthe
• 2-parts prosecco (or other sweet bubbly wine)
• 2-parts coconut water
• 1 long squeeze of honey

1. Put liquids in grande Starbucks sippy cup. 
2. Add honey. 
3. Stir with provided straw. 
4. Drink two and pass out. 
5. Throw the cup away, as you will never get rid of the smell. 

That is exactly what I did, or what I thought I did…I drank two and passed out writing a story where I poured out my frustration at being apart from all those I enjoy so much and titled them both the same. 

You can read the short story here. It was originally published on the now-defunct poeticdiversity litzine website. I had to write the ending the following day and it took five tries because I had lost my muse to the waking rays of the sun. 

After the first glass of absinthe you see things as you wish they were. After the second you see them as they are not. Finally you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world.
— Oscar Wilde

Today is the three year anniversary of that trip and it turns out that I had actually invented two drinks that night, having run out of Prosecco after making the first and having to make due for the second.   Thank you to Facebook for the memory. 

Titania’s Tears (Beverages, serves one)

• 2 parts absinthe
• 2 parts coconut water
• 1 squeeze of honey 

1. Put liquids in a Grande Starbucks sippy cup. 
2. Add honey. 
3. Stir with provided straw. 
4. Throw out the cup because you will never get rid of the smell. 

I was obviously in a maudlin and literary mood that night, naming this second drink for the faerie queen of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, who is bewitched into falling in love with a man who has magically been given the head of an ass, through the application of a love philtre by the mischievous sprite Puck. I will leave it to my readers to deduce what was going on in my head or life at the time. 

Three months later, I was on another train, this time on a 30-day U.S. Rail Pass, doing what I called my Hemingway Adventure. I rode across the nation drinking absinthe cocktails, living on beef jerky, dried fruits, nuts, and coconut water, video dating, and writing. It was the only time I have completed NaNoWriMo and I still haven’t finished editing that book, damn it. 

Two months later, I moved to Texas (?!) to live with Papa Satyr (just Satyr at the time) and was struggling to write a short story for the anthology Near Kin: A Collection of Words and Art Inspired by Octavia Estelle Butler. I struggled because I did not like what had come to mind to write after listening to the audio book Parable of the Sower, and it made me angry to think about it. 

I sought to distract myself, so I organized the pantry, throwing out ancient foods, scrubbing shelves, and lining them with shelf paper. I got very angry with the previous tenant for being messy and leaving food there for ages beyond date, and I suspect she might have been a hoarder, but really my anger was about this damned story in my head. A sad and upsetting story of abuse, though the ending might not be sad. Hard to say. I have never re-read it. 

I decided to make a drink, went to the unusually well-stocked bar I live with (unusual because neither of us really drinks), and decided to make a cocktail. I did not want an absinthe drink because I wanted to dull the mind, not expand it. I created yet another drink, which I named for the occasion. 

Drunken Shelf Paper (Beverages, serves one)

• Ice (I like my drinks on ice)
• 2 fingers cassis
• 2 fingers rum
• 1 finger of club soda
• 1 finger of coconut water

1. Combine ingredients in a shaker. 
2. Shake singing, “Shake, shake, shake senora, shake it left and right. Work, work, work senora, right into my ride.”

If this is too sweet, you could go with vodka or decrease the cassis. 

Sadly, or luckily, the drink did not dull my mind enough, and when I had finished the second shelf, I put everything still on date back on the shelf and sat down and wrote my story, “Everyone Says”, and Satyr was relieved that I stopped being cranky with him. 

I had to get it out of my head.