Vernal thoughts

[muckefuck]

The current freakish warmup is only confirming what I've always claimed: Chicago doesn't have a "spring" as such; it just alternates between winter and summer until it's out of winter. This morning, there was still ice packed along the coast of the lake almost as far as the eye could see. The only exception was an odd channel a few dozen yards from shore that looked like it had been sliced out with a schooner. But by the time I headed home, there were only a few pockets of shattered floes in sheltered areas of the shore. I'm curious to see if anything will be tricked into sprouting before the bottom falls out again.

When I came home, I found monshu on the back porch sipping a gin-and-tonic. As a harbinger of spring, this is up there with the first robin or snowdrops pushing up between last fall's petrified dog poop. I decided I wanted something with tinge of green to sip at his side and he reminded me of the Last Call: equal parts gin, Maraschino, lime juice, and green Chartreuse. It's a powerful concoction, so I drank it tall while I relished the fact that I was standing outside in short pants. Not too soon to being thinking about what we're going to be sticking into our square metre of black earth, is it?

Comments

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

Chartreuse in your Aviation? I'm simultaneously creeped and fascinated.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

An Aviation made without crème de violette isn't worthy of the name.

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

You completely trumped me - even though Aviations ain't exactly my metier, I am humbled. And now I want a bottle of something that will almost certainly repulse me with its perfumy oldgrannyness. And it turns out I might even be able to mail order it. Trouble!

...I guess I can always use it for making sorbets, if the drinking doesn't work out. Or! Chocolate truffles...

[lhn.livejournal.com]

I think an Aviation made with crème de violette is technically a Blue Moon.

(Also, as long as I'm nitpicking: Last Word, not Last Call. :-) )

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

No, a Blue Moon is an Aviation without Maraschino. The name for an Aviation without crème de violette is "how people made Aviations in the dark ages before crème de violette was available in the States again".

[lhn.livejournal.com]

Huh. So it is. I stand corrected.

(And it looks as if I may want to track down David Wondrich's Imbibe!)

[innerdoggie.livejournal.com]

I think of this time of year as the Battle of Spring and Winter. Winter, of course, is Old Man Winter, and Spring starts out as a little baby and grows up into a young man who can finally defeat Old Man Winter. (Why I think both of them are male -- hmm?)

The baby is having a ball right now, and has brought up the snowdrops and winter aconite. But I imagine the Old Man will deal him a harsh blow soon, and he'll have to retreat and regroup.

[lhn.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the Last Word recommendation, btw. I'd have thought that the Chartreuse would overpower everything else, but not at all.

(One blog recommends subbing lemon for the lime and makes some other changes. I haven't tried it yet, but it might be an interesting variation.)

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I'm sure it depends on your relationship to Chartreuse. monshu and both enjoy the taste enough to drink it straight as a digestif, but the last time we served this to a dinner guest, he made a face neither of us has forgotten.