“If you’re determined to sail such ruinous waters, you might as well boast about the voyage.”
-Elaine Brookhaunts, Plain Bad Heroines
Broadly speaking, since taking the program over out of necessity following the return to work after the first COVID shutdowns, I try to change the cocktail program at Raleigh “seasonally.” In practice this is a rough timeline, with a drinks’ coming and going influenced by a range of factors. Once, when given jar full of spicy chili brine from the kitchen at the same time green strawberries were in season, I played around and came up with a delicious sparkling mezcal drink that was unfortunately short lived—I had only the one jar of brine after all. The inverse of that, after winning Portsmouth Restaurant Week’s Best Mixologist, the cocktail which won required our bringing in ten pounds of kumquats. That drink stuck around, and delicious as it was I was somewhat pleased to be able to move forward and away from it.
There is some intentionality to it, sure. Plans for new drinks begin developing at about the same new drinks go on the menu. Replacements are almost always in the process of brainstorming and ingredient and climactic conditions monitored for when those changes would be most advantageous.
Which brings us to #beeskneesweek! Caledonia Spirits, the makers of Barr Hill Gin, have run this promotional and environmental-focused week since 2017. It is a celebration of both the classic cocktail, their product, the original makers of their product (for Barr Hill owes its existence to honey, dear readers), and the importance of pollinators, especially honey bees. It is an utterly charming and thoroughly inventive program, this year pledging ten square feet of wildflowers planted during the week for every photograph in which they are tagged and for the #beeskneesweek
This year, Bee’s Knees Week coincided with another step forward in my industry education: my first fermentation project. The Chef at the restaurant where I work has a love of fermentation and all manner of preservation. It has been my pleasure to watch projects of kombucha, dilly beans, and duck breast prosciutto come to life under his guidance. Fermented honey, with a more complex flavor than its normal counterpart and limitless ability to preserve things within both its high sugar and fermented state, seemed an eas(ier) first project for me. The addition of fresh peaches and housemade nectarine jam only facilitated this further.
The result was unquestionably delicious, and the perfect compliment to a Bee’s Knees.
Syrup of this fermented honey now in hand, base spirit picked, the final questions were all related to the tweaking. Saline solution, especially in any drink with deeper sweetness than simple syrup and fruit flavors that need highlighting, is never a poor idea, and helps bring the stonefruit notes of the fermented honey syrup further along. For all that played well together, I wanted at once some richness and more freshness, and along came Calvados- an apple and pear brandy from Normandy that remains something of an Achille’s Heel for me. Calvados also gave the drink a slightly fall tinge, which was good as we were transition into mid and late September while experimenting continued.
By this point I felt it ready for a quick taste around staff, some hemming and hawing over this and that note, this and that ratio, what was missing. There always seems to be something missing, and being so near the project for so long narrows your focus where outside eyes, tastes?, is always advantageous.
The same is true of writing, I think. Here’s to all the editors and beta readers out there.
In the end, a final addition of Lillet Blanc added depth and a really pleasant floral note which bound the drink together to everyone’s satisfaction.
“The drink,” dear readers, because it did not yet have a name.
Naming’s hard. That’s true of stories and drinks, and not just titles but characters and places and everything else that goes into building a world. Making a drink is making a little world in and of itself, and this was no exception. Sometimes inspiration comes from weird sources, a whiskey drink we had on the menu last year was named The Weedkiller because we thought it was strong enough to do just that, the Stawberry Sunset so named for its color.
Sometimes it’s a matter of looking at ingredients, though. Honey, gin, lillet, calvados, and saline.
Fermented honey, at that. Calvados bringing a note of apple. Gin, for all we joke, so evocative of certain elements of the New England demographic. There was literary potential for you— brought on in recollection of a quote from one of my favorite reads of the previous year:
“For now, let me acquaint you with Vespula maculifrons: the eastern yellow jacket. If you’re imaging some do-gooder honeybee humming about the pastel pages of a children’s book, don’t.
“Eastern yellow jackets are aggressive when provoked, relentless when defending their underground home. They don’t make honey, but might I offer you instead the desiccated insect paste they use to grow their masses? A given colony’s workers are all stinging, sterile females who, in autumn— when they’ve been laid off from their busywork and can sense that the coming freeze will bring their deaths— just want to fly around, bored and gorging on carbs. (But, then, don’t we all?) Because they also feed on carrion, some people refer to them as meat bees. That’s technically incorrect, but it sounds good.”
Plain Bad Heroines vaulted itself to the top of one of my favorite books of all time for its gorgeous writing style, snarky and punny narrator, and thoroughly enchanting story. If you want to know more, please read my review of it HERE! But the chance to name a cocktail containing apples, honey, gin, and aromatized wine for something in this book so in love with things that fly and sting, with New England’s spookier side, with complicated love and the perpetual scent of woodsmoke, orange blossoms, and fermenting apples hanging in the air could not be missed.
Not yellow jacket, though, that would do a disservice to the bees the drink and week were meant to celebrate. Not even something Vespula related, too close to the vehicle. A character, for sure, one inseparable from the plot and who would likely herself appreciate the drink and all it stands for. The younger characters, though wonderful, would not do. Sorry to Harper Harper, but I think you’d want to order something else. Why not then the center of the historic plot, the plot that ensnared me the most and kept me turning pages.
Enter, then, the Libbie Brookhaunts, now on the menu at Raleigh Wine Bar + Eatery!
Making cocktails is so easy, isn’t it, dear readers?