#LiteraryMocktails
by Megan Rickerson

• Blue Door for Hannah Lillith Assadi & Paradiso 17
• Fortune for Kerri Schlottman & Daytime Moon
• The Mein Thing for Abigail Savitch-Lew & Livonia Chow Mein

RECIPES: 

Kerri Schlottman ~ Daytime Moon ~ Fortune Let this #LiteraryCocktail be your fortune—a path toward defining dreams and discovering home. Mix one up when you feel like you’ve broken something and you’re holding the two pieces in your hands, not quite sure how they fit together again… Or when you’re stuck in the eye of a storm, a feigned calm center with a whirling chaos around you. If you move an inch one way or another, you’ll get swooped up. When you feel the wind—it blows, not around you, but through you. And you become merely grains of yourself, like the sand, the salt in the air. Like the death bloom of the agave plant, scattered out into the wind.

1.5 oz Los Vecinos del Camp Mezcal from a flask at the racetrack, .25 oz Tanteo Habenero for a “real kick” like Hudson’s specialty, .75 oz fresh orange juice to remind you of Aaron’s penchant for Capri Sun, .5 oz fresh lime juice, .5 oz agave nectar to recall (but not to dwell on) the plant’s death bloom, .25 oz hibiscus syrup, 1 oz egg white, chilled dry prosecco like the champagne Hudson served, spiced salt and seaweed crumbles

Rim a chilled coupe or flute: Kick off the seaweed that drags at your ankles and combine with spiced salt. Rub an orange wedge around half the rim, and roll it in the spiced salt and seaweed mix.

Dry shake first seven ingredients with the STRENGTH to live life fully and completely, and keep on shaking (for 15 seconds) until you reverse that reversed EMPRESS, turn neediness into abundance—and build up a dense, velvety foam. Add ice to the shaker, and shake again, until mountains [shift] to rocks to gravel to sand—usually about 10-12 seconds. Fine strain into your prepared [ACE OF] CUP[S]. Slowly top with chilled prosecco. Express an orange peel twist and lay gently on top.

When the word “home” sticks in your mouth, feels like it’s not a real word at all—know you’re looking in the wrong place, and that it’s time to try your Fortune. Savor the taste: It’s like sipping the past, that familiar flavor, and accepting the future.

Best served with a bowl of Cheetos.

Hannah Lillith Assadi ~ Paradiso 17 ~ Blue Door Mix this #LiteraryCocktail when you’re missing those Italian nights dancing to “Bella Ciao.” You may find that true life never conforms to a fairytale. It adjoins more to a tragedy…but take solace in drink: drink is honest. It does what it intends to do, and doesn’t lie. So we offer this #LiteraryCocktail as a taste of hope—you are as strong as a lion.

1.5 oz Altamura Vodka, .75 oz Giffard Abricot du Roussillon,v.75 oz fresh lime juice, .25 oz Ancho Reyes Chile Liqueur, .5 oz simple syrup, 1 barspoon of Canaan Shatta Hot Chile Paste, from Palestine, 2 drops Liquid Blue

Spread Shatta—a taste of home—in a thin line down half the exterior rim of a rocks glass. Coat with salt [of another man’s bread].

Measure vodka into a shaker with ice to recall those four Stolis lined up for you and your friends on that bar in Tribeca. Add the Giffard, recalling the scent of apricots sold at the Mercato Centrale along with the remaining ingredients and shake. Fine strain into your prepared glass over fresh ice. Garnish with a lime and fresh sage, another Mercato staple.

Imagine if you could taste the color blue? Raise your glass and try it.

Now toast: Per sempre!

Abigail Savitch-Lew ~ Livonia Chow Mein ~ The Mein Thing When no one knows who you are, it’s easy to cross borders. You may be like Richard, crossing an ocean, a continent, then gathering friends—Jewish, Black, White, Hispanic. Or like Sadie, crossing from one neighborhood into a decidedly different, exciting and enigmatic one, searching for truth. Or Lina, uniting her neighbors—a one woman show, her resistance, art. Mixing this #LiteraryMocktail is a similar art: pulling together the diverse identities, cultures, personalities, histories of Brownsville; into a school, a community center, a garden, a place where people can grow. A means to a most important end—the Mein Thing is home.

This #LiteraryMocktail is a play on an egg cream, but even better than the ones Richard and his friends dreamed about drinking at Coney Island. It has chocolate to honor Lina and her love of Hershey’s kisses. It’s flavored with peanuts and the spices found in the Peanut Punch Sadie likes to pick up on Utica Avenue, and a touch of soy to recall her dad’s and her grandfather’s cooking.

1.5 oz coconut milk, 1 oz peanut butter syrup, .5 oz chocolate syrup, 2-3 dashes soy sauce, 4-5 oz seltzer or club soda, fresh cinnamon & nutmeg

In a collins glass, combine the first four ingredients. Add a splash of seltzer. Use a long spoon or handheld milk frother to vigorously stir and emulsify. Fill the glass with ice. Pour the remaining seltzer down the inside wall of the glass or down the spiral of your bar spoon. Stir gently from the bottom up just once or twice to lift the base into the seltzer while preserving the carbonation. A thick, creamy foam will form at the top. Grate fresh cinnamon & nutmeg over the foam.

Take a sip—hou hiak! It’ll taste like riding the cyclone

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