Fiction
Three Sours
Aching for the sweet
“No egg white. One with a candied orange slice, the other two each with a sprig of rosemary. Yes to bitters, three drops. The only reason I come here is you don’t use a mix and you keep rosemary on hand. My candied orange too.”
Max put the three drinks in front of her. She pulled them to her like a poker player scooping up a pile of chips. She organized the old-fashioned glasses into a strict row and downed each one in order. The one with the candied orange was in the middle. She drank it second and ate the orange slice, peel and all, grimacing at the intensity of the sugar, the sourness of the peel.
“That goes right where my jaw hinges,” she said. “Hurts so good.”
She chugged the third sour after removing the rosemary as she had done with the first. A white cocktail napkin absorbed the beads of liquid gathered on each sprig. Two bushy sprigs like slender branches from a Fraser Fir. Max could smell the rosemary from behind the bar even before she crushed the napkin with the sprigs inside.
After she slammed the last drink she squinted at him.
“That’s for remembrance. Good job on the mixology, Maxwell.”
Max pointed to his name tag, two layers of black and white plastic, pinned to his white shirt.
