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 easily 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 can 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 glasss. 
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 that was sensual, their experience of the world at large, and, of course, the Green Fairy. See the movie Moulin Rouge for a wonderful 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, sharpening rather than dulling the wits, while still effusing one with the warm glow of ethanol, and the juices of creativity flow within and ultimately must find outlet. 

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

— Aleister Crowley

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

An acquaintance within my fraternal order had a reputation for being both 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 do not remember, and a bottle of honey.  I sampled the different kinds straight, then with the classic water and sugar, then with juice, and finally added honey. I found it became more palatable when sweetened and diluted, but it was not enough to just have the classic way, I required more doctoring. 

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

On the train, I experienced what is called con-drop. I was all alone on the train, separated from those I love and enjoy, and reading about everyone getting home from the conference and posting all the pictures try 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, originally published in a 1935 cocktail book:

Death in the Afternoon (Beverages, serves one)

• Pour one jigger 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 palatable to me, so I invented my own drink with what I had one hand or was 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 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 on the poeticdiversity website. I had to write the ending the next morning 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 grande Starbucks sippy cup. 
2. Add honey. 
3. Stir with provided straw. 
4. Throw out 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 mischevious 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 had 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. Struggling 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 foods there for ages beyond date and I suspect she might have been a pack rat, 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 and went to the unusually well stocked bar I live with (unusual because neither of us really drink) and decided to make a cocktail. I did not want an absinthe drink because I was looking 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 club soda
• 1 finger 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.”

You could go with vodka, if this is too sweet 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 in 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 just had to get it out of my head.