Last week’s highball, the Florodora, was described as being among the most refreshing summer drinks available. The Deep Blue Punch seems to be a popular one as well, judging by the number of people reading it here. One notes that they are both on the sweet side – the latter more so than the former.
This is no slight on them, certainly, since they don’t overdo it. And make no mistake, your host (and Villa bartender) has no trouble enjoying drinks of whatever sweetness. But there is something to be said for the light, clean, and refreshing quality of a beverage which has very little sugar of any kind, or at least more tartness than sweetness.
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…which is also advice on poetry.
When They Come Alive
Try to keep them, poet,
those erotic visions of yours,
however few of them there are that can be stilled.
Put them, half-hidden, in your lines.
Try to hold them, poet,
when they come alive in your mind
at night or in the noonday brightness.
(Constantine P. Cavafy)
…but just in little bites for now. So to speak.
Maybe I’m still the mermaid.
Maybe the ocean is your hand.
(Kelli Russell Agodon, Hourglass Museum)
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It’s a good time of year for simple, refreshing drinks, no?
Here’s one you probably haven’t heard of, but which I suspect you’d like on a day like today.
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Remember John Donne, who taught us that there is no penance due to innocence? He has some other items to entertain us, once we’re used to his 400-year-old form of English. In this, he regrets the dawn as lovers tend to, being called away from embraces to embrace the day.
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The horrifying events in Nice, France yesterday remind your forgetful host that yesterday was also Bastille Day. Never a place to allow evil to intrude upon good, let all in our Garden and Villa raise a toast in honor of events long past and the good folk of France today.
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Once upon a time, an excellent chap named Dale DeGroff got rolling a return to really good cocktails. Not that he did it single-handedly, of course, but his influence was, and is, enormous. He’s produced bartender handbooks, absinthe, bitters, and any number of training programs and seminars. Naturally a collection of original drinks happened along the way.
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Hey, your host can’t always come up with witty titles. But today we’ve got a cocktail that should make up for it.
There’s only one problem with the recipe: the word “maraschino.”
But that problem is an illusion.
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Stranger, here you will do well to tarry; here our highest good is pleasure.