Birth of a Cocktail
From Pregnancy to Poison, This is the Labor.
I grew up in a small town and every autumn, the girl whose parents owned the summer rental, the girl who I pursued all summer and whom I finally convinced to like me, would disappear back to the mystical city from whence she came. The air would get brisker, the sun, a little less hot, the lake, cold. The menacing growl of high school lurking a week away would increase in mental volume. This was the end of the hot summer road…
There was however, a silver lining to all of this: The Fairs.
Annually, the weekend before school began there was always a fair, “The I.P.A.” in Armstrong, twenty minutes away from my home-town of Salmon Arm. To most of the community, this event was an opportunity to finally capture the coveted blue ribbon in livestock grooming, wacky vegetable decoration, and to finally put to rest the hotly debated question as to “who baked the best pie in town?”
However, for young hormonal males, this weekend held a much higher significance. This was not simply a celebration of community produce; this was the kick-off to “girlfriend season.”
This bizarre courtship ritual would begin with the teenage male population of my small town loading en-masse into the backs of pick-up trucks or hitchhiking to Armstrong. Once the community was infiltrated, under the cover of night, by the lights of the fair rides, the young males would swarm through the sickly sweet waft of mini-doughnut smell, individually seeking to identify the species known as “The New Girl in Town.” Once identified, the males would compete in challenges of skill for approval of the NGIT. Seeking recognition, the males would throw darts at balloon walls, shoot out red stars with air powered pellet guns and whack plastic moles with over-sized mallets in an attempt to be noticed. While this contest of champions was heated, it was universally understood by the males that this was only the opening salvo in a much larger game plan that would culminate a week later when the fair would make the journey to Salmon Arm, for the annual “Fall Fair.”
Stage two of this ritual would commence on the Monday following the Armstrong fair, when the males would return to their high school hallways to scan for the NGIT they targeted over the weekend. During the first school week they would continue to vie for the NGIT’s attention, gleaning advantageous tidbits of her habits from fellow students. Armed with a dossier of insider info, the males would then return to the fair (now located in the male’s hometown of Salmon Arm) during the weekend. Fueled on liquid courage procured from their parents liquor cabinets, the males would set forth to engage the NGIT by asking her to accompany them on a fair ride.
This ritual, this memory, is not just a piece of my childhood, it could, at any moment, be chosen as the seed for a new cocktail. While some might not share this annual childhood experience in a larger city, or different culture,I can still draw from this experience for inspiration and in turn, choose some ingredients that evoke a response from the drinker. For instance, the orchard behind my high school where my I walked my grade 10 NGIT home was full of apple trees, so I’ll start with an apple puree. The smell of the mini-donuts at the fair calls for cinnamon sugar, so I’ll make some. I pursued my NGIT while fueled on a mickey of amber rum, so there’s my base spirit. Her hair smelled like vanilla, so I’ll add some to my cinnamon sugar, and since it’s an autumn experience I’ll add a bit of clove and star anise and convert my cinnamon sugar into a mulling spice. The first time I spotted her at the fair she was in a line up for fresh-pressed lemonade and there were bees swarming around the stand, so I’ll add honey-sweetened lemonade. Suddenly, stemming from a silly memory, I have the makings of a great autumn cocktail that contains a piece of my childhood experience.
Amber Rum
Apple Puree
Honey-Sweetened Lemonade
Mulling Spiced Rim
Perhaps this cocktail will remind one person of sharing an apple cider with their Aunt. Another will draw a memory from a component of the spice and relate it to their favorite café in Vienna where they make the best puff pastry and the whole place smells like vanilla and cinnamon. Maybe it’s where they proposed to their wife. Is anyone going to relate it back to my exact autumn experience? No. Am I going to tell them the story? No. Is the cocktail memorable? Yes, of course it is, because its ingredients are memories.
This is how a cocktail is born. When one imparts an experience into a cocktail, the cocktail becomes an experience.
