Category: Burns

Cocktails on The Moon

Posted on by Dale
3 Old Men’s labyrinth with full moon

Last week I headed up to Tennessee to To The Moon, the regional burn there. It’s a long drive, longer if the driver’s side window of your 15′ rental truck explodes for no reason, necessitating a five-hour delay while the repair guy shows up to replace it.

Anyway, I promised a few hippies that I would post the recipes of the cocktails my camp (3 Old Men) served, so here we go. (I don’t have time to make each of these and take a photo, but I promise I’ll get around to each of them after I get back from Grand Canyon next week.)

Blandings In Cold Blood

First, an explanation/apology. I felt last week that I was a bit discombobulated in getting my act together to make it to the burn, and if we needed any proof, here it is. The cocktail I served at the burn was not the Blandings, but one called In Cold Blood. I have no idea why I thought it was a Blandings.

  • 1 oz rye
  • 1 oz sweet vermouth, Carpano Antica preferred
  • 1 oz Cynar (bitter artichoke amaro)
  • lemon peel
  • pinch of salt

It’s rich and bitter, one of my favorites — which makes not getting the name right even weirder.

Rose-Colored G

One  of mine. Takes a little prep, but worth it.

  • 1 1/2 oz gin, preferably an old tom
  • tonic water
  • hibiscus-infused dry gin
  • allspice/tiki bitters
  • lime slice

Soak a couple of tablespoons of dried hibiscus flowers in a pint or more of dry gin. It should be a rich ruby color and should take about 45 minutes – an hour. Strain and store.

Make a gin & tonic, leaving room at the top of the glass. Drop in the lime slice. Carefully pour a little hibiscus infusion on top of the ice, forming a pretty layer of red floating on top of the G&T. Dribble 4–5 drops of the tiki bitters on top of that.

This is a spectacular cocktail, especially effective at Christmas. Tart and spicy.

Smoking Hot Molly

I invented this one at the behest of one Molly Honea for her 25th birthday.

  • 2 oz bourbon, preferably rooibos-infused
  • 3/4 oz Ancho Reyes liqueur
  • 1/2 oz creme de cacao
  • cherry wood smoke

Infuse 750ml of bourbon with 3 tablespoons of loose rooibos tea for about an hour. Strain and store. (While not strictly necessary, the rooibos will add a smoky note to the drink.) Likewise, smoking the cocktail with cherry wood is not required but boy will it bump the cocktail up several notches!

The chocolate of the creme de cacao comes through first, and then the ancho chile pepper takes over on the finish. A very fine cocktail, if I do say so myself.

Semele’s Flame

Yes, I just invented this one last month.

  • 2 oz (60ml) Metaxa (I used the 12-star)
  • ¾ oz (25ml) lemon juice
  • ½ oz (15ml) honey
  • ⅛ oz (5ml) mezcal
  • honey/sea salt rim (mixture of granulated honey and sea salt)

Smear honey around 1/4 of the rim of a martini glass. Dip it in the honey/sea salt mixture.

Add the 1/2 oz of honey to a shaker. (Instead of trying to scoop the honey out of your jigger, use a tablespoon and scrape it from there. 1 tbsp = 1/2 oz)

Add the other ingredients and then stir to dissolve the honey. Add ice, shake, and strain into the martini glass.

Besides being a showstopper in its preparation, this drink is one of the best I’ve ever invented. Without the honey/sea salt rim, it’s a little too sweet, but that rim really makes it work.

New-Fashioned

My fellow Lichtenbergian (and Old Man) Turff sent me this recipe several years ago, and I thought what you’re thinking now: banana liqueur? What the fupp? Trust me.

  • 2 oz bourbon
  • 3/4 oz banana liqueur
  • 1 dash Jack Rudy bitters
  • orange peel

This drink goes down easy, and the banana flavor is actually tasty and not gimmicky. Try it — you’ll like it.

Thyme & Tonic

Another one with an involved prep, but worth it.

  • 1 1/2 oz thyme liqueur
  • tonic water
  • sprig of fresh thyme

Infuse 3–4 tablespoons of fresh thyme sprigs in a 750 ml of neutral spirit, like vodka, for three weeks until it’s a rich olive green. Strain and set aside. Make a cup of simple syrup by boiling 1 cup of water with 1 cup of sugar until the sugar dissolves. (You might try experimenting with brown sugar, etc.) Mix simple syrup into the thyme until it’s just sweet enough. Don’t oversweeten it!

If you’re going to be making a lot of infusions, you will appreciate the simplicity of an infuser like the Alkemista Alcohol Infuser: It’s expensive, but there’s no easier way to infuse and then strain your stuff. No more cheesecloth or coffee filters! Also, it holds 950ml, which, if you’re batching a lot of cocktails, is a good size. Other available infusers with the same design are smaller and less expensive, so if you don’t need 750ml of an infusion, one of those will work just fine.

Otherwise, the cocktail is simply a gin & tonic with thyme instead of gin. I took this to the burn thinking I’d get some reactions and suggestions on how to improve it, but everyone who had it remarked on how refreshing it was, so I suppose its very simplicity is a bonus.

Have fun!

Cleaning out

Posted on by Dale

The problem with cleaning out one’s clutter is that if you’re not just shoveling it all out the door, if you stop and examine the material you’re purging so that you don’t throw anything away that your biographers might wish they had, that you are apt to be besieged by memories.

My task was to take the notebooks and sketchbooks that were crammed into the bottom shelf of the supply shelf unit in my study and to see why they were still with me. Some are archival: designs for sets, costumes; travel journals; that kind of thing.

Others were the notebooks I used when I was the media specialist at Newnan Crossing Elementary or assistant program director for instruction at the Georgia Governor’s Honors Program, and those are the ones that I went through and tore out pages: file, trash, blog. There will be more of these in the near future. I beg your forbearance.

This was my preferred notebook:

The top half of the page is blank; the bottom is ruled. It’s perfect for sketching/note-taking, especially for a visual learner. They still make them, but they also make them in other configurations now.

Here’s a page that struck me.

A closer look:

“Fred & Mary” was a lesson I did for third grade at Newnan Crossing to teach a social study standard. You can read all about it here. It was a stellar lesson. (Students were given the handout and asked to read it as a team at each table. I waited patiently for them to cry foul, and then we plotted a course for finding out the truth. A wall-sized timeline played a role.)

But what struck me here was the date: March 3, 2011. I don’t know why this page is blank; there are several others in the notebook outlining the whole thing. But on April 1, barely four weeks later, I was offered the position of the director of GHP, my dream job, and by May 1 I was gone from Newnan Crossing Elementary.

And on July 25, 2013 — ten years ago today — I arrived back in my office at the Georgia Department of Education after presiding over GHP’s 50th summer to be told that the governor at the time, in a fit of spite against the state school superintendent, had seized the program and moved it to his Office of Student Achievement — and did not take me with it. After 29 summers working at GHP, I was out of my job.

When I saw the date coming up on the calendar, I wondered how I was going to feel about it. Ten years since losing my dream job…

However, my plan was to work for the DOE for ten years and then retire, which means I would have retired in 2021 anyway. Since leaving GHP, I’ve found plenty to enjoy in my life, up to and including my theme camp, 3 Old Men, and the Georgia burn community. I have no complaints.

Cocktails with friends

Posted on by Dale

This past weekend I was invited to attend a fully-vaccinated, outdoor event by Camp Shameless, a burn theme camp who pretty much lives up to their charming name. I took cocktails for the happy hour before dinner on Saturday night, and they were a hit. Here, for those who are interested, are the recipes, with advice.

(Note: I served these on the rocks at the burn, but the first three are usually served without ice.)

No photos, alas.

Naked & Famous

  • ¾ oz mezcal
  • ¾ oz Aperol
  • ¾ oz yellow Chartreuse
  • ¾ oz lime juice
  • garnish lime slice

Shake with ice; pour into glass. Adorn with lime slice.

Thunderer

This one is a little complicated, but worth it. The Honey Arbol Ginger Syrup is an extra step, but not hard.

  • 1 ½ oz bourbon (or gin/tequila/rum)
  • 1 oz grapefruit juice
  • ¾ oz lemon juice
  • ½ oz Honey Arbol Ginger Syrup
  • garnish: slice of arbol chile

Shake with ice; pour into glass. Adorn with the slice of arbol.

Honey Arbol Ginger Syrup

  • ¾ c orange blossom honey
  • ¼ c boiling water
  • 2 oz fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped (about ½ cup)
  • ½-inch piece chile de árbol (I use dried)

Directions

Put the honey and water in a blender and stir until the honey dissolves. Add the ginger and chile and blend on high speed until the ginger is pulverized. Strain through a chinois or cheesecloth or fine-mesh strainer and discard the solids. Let the syrup cool to room temperature. Transfer to a small jar or bottle and refrigerate for up to 1 month.

Charlie Chaplin

  • 1 oz apricot liqueur
  • 1 oz sloe gin
  • 1 oz lime juice

Shake with ice; pour into glass.

Cedar & Sorghum

(This is one of my inventions, essentially a Manhattan with stuff in it.)

  • 2 oz rye
  • ¾ oz sweet vermouth
  • 1 barspoon cedar tincture*
  • 1 barspoon bourbon-barrel aged maple syrup
  • 2 dashes Woodford Reserve Sassafras & Sorghum bitters
  • garnish: orange peel

*To make the cedar tincture, char cedar wrap/paper (the kind you use for grilling) with your flame, then soak it in vodka/Everclear until it is a dark amber.

Stir with ice; pour over ice. Express the orange peel over the drink, toss it in.

[notes: When do you shake vs. stir? Cocktails with citrus juices, milk, and/or egg whites are shaken; otherwise stir. James Bond was asking for a more-diluted martini when he asked for his “shaken, not stirred.” To “express” a citrus peel, simply hold it over the drink and squish it suddenly. You’ll be surprised and delighted at the oils that spurt out. Finally, I tend to add the bitters after the pour so that the aromas are foremost, but feel free to add them to the mixing.]

Rose-Colored G

(This is another invention of mine.)

Again, an extra step, but this one is so easy that it hardly counts.

  • 1 ½ oz gin
  • tonic water
  • hibiscus-infused gin floated*
  • allspice bitters floated*

*For the hibiscus-infused gin, soak a handful of dried hibiscus blossoms in gin for 2–4 hours. Strain, store. For the bitters, I’ve used both Dale DeGroff’s Pimento Aromatic Bitters and Bittermens Elemakule Tiki Bitters. Other bitters with predominant allspice notes would also work. Or play with other bitters — that’s the fun of cocktails.

Make yourself a gin & tonic, leaving room in the glass. Carefully pour the hibiscus-infused gin on top. Add 3–5 drops of bitters on top of that. You may add a lime slice if you wish.

New-Fashioned

An Old-Fashioned is one of the granddaddies of cocktails: bourbon with simple syrup and bitters. This is a twist on that.

  • 2 oz bourbon
  • ¾ oz banana liqueur
  • 1 dash Jack Rudy bitters (or other aromatic bitters, like Angostura)
  • garnish: orange peel or cherry

Stir with ice; pour over ice. Garnish at will.

If you have questions, don’t hesitate to ask.

Empty calendars, feelings about that

Posted on by Dale

This morning, my to-do app presented me with today’s tasks, and one of them was to “email TCOs of the past two burns” — which means that I needed to open up the placement databases for Alchemy 2018 and Alchemy 2019 and send an email to the Theme Camp Organizers to let them know that registration for placement at Alchemy 2020 would soon be upon them.

Of course, that’s moot, because the burn is canceled —all burns are canceled — for 2020, so that depressed me.

But then my eye fell on a notebook on my shelf that I truly couldn’t remember being there; it was full of morning pages that I had started writing in September of 2013, right after I was retired from GHP by the vindictive Governor Nathan Deal (whose actual target was Dr. John Barge, Supt. of the DOE). All my pain and grief were there for me to revisit (along with some positive things like the cross country trip and the composition of Five Easier Pieces).

And there on one of the last pages I bothered to write (12/2/13) was this:

For some reason, I began thinking about Burning Man and what my cadre might have to offer.
Here’s the image that came to me:
Three Old Men — loin cloths — gas masks — large walking sticks — single file — in sync — slow motion dance with the walking sticks.

Well.

When I went back to my to-do list, suddenly the placement task was not so depressing, because unlike GHP, the burn will be back in my life. This is only temporary.

A new adventure

Posted on by Dale

If you’ve read this blog for even a year, you know that in my spare time I am a dirty freaking hippie who attends “burns,” which are regional events modeled on Burning Man.

Not only that, but since I am cursed with skills and competence I have risen in the ranks of leadership to Placement Lead, which means that when the 130+ theme camps register, I get to decide where they’re placed on the map.  And not only that, but because of the organization’s moving from its long-time venue a couple of years ago, we’ve been on new land three times in two years, which means that as Placement Lead I get to design the burn from the literal ground up.

I am not complaining.  It’s a huge amount of work, but it appeals to the ritualist in me to be able to take a piece of property and lay out boulevards and squares and byways that add up to a complete, explorable, community.

Here’s the new home for Alchemy (our fall burn):

—click to embiggen—

It’s a lovely farm, owned by a burner, in northwest Georgia.  As always, it’s not as flat as it looks from space, but it’s flat enough to be an exciting canvas.

For those keeping score, here are the things on my list of things to procrastinate:

I do hope I haven’t forgotten anything…

This week

Posted on by Dale

This morning, I will begin laying out the map for Euphoria, the spring Burn here in Georgia.  You may recall the epic journey from last fall when I designed the burn from scratch and then had to place 3,000 hippies, all of whom wanted “flat land, next to the road, near the tree line, away from the sound camps.”  I did it, and it was fun, exhilarating even.

Now it’s time to do it again.  It’s a little easier this time, only 1,000 hippies, and only 43 camps instead of 130.  Plus, I already know what I’m doing.

The point is, this is the only writing you’re getting this morning.  I have to place All The Hippies.

Later.

Dale’s what??

Posted on by Dale

So in my dream, the phrase DALE’S CLEATS flashed upon the screen.

I mean to say, what?

I felt vaguely that it might have something to do with the Backstreet Writers group that I am struggling to get off the ground down at Backstreet Arts, but how?  I’ve never owned a pair of cleats in my life, nor have I ever done anything remotely requiring cleats, even for a moment.

So… digging in?  Running fast?  Pivoting sharply?[1]

It didn’t end there.

A few moments later—in dreamtime, anyway—the phrase Christian auction salmon appeared.  (Both phrases seemed to be printed on the screen.  You know, the screen.)

Well OK then.  Now you’re just messing with me.  I’ll leave the guessing to the Lacanians in our midst and move on to what this phrase reminded me of: placement at a burn.

No, really, and it has nothing to do with Christians, auctions, or salmon. I already told you it was about a burn, remember?

Last fall when I was trying to wrangle a new piece of property into a proper burn, one of the banes of my existence was measuring the land accurately.  I bought a laser rangefinder and that helped, but things like exactly where the Effigy and Temple would go were driving me to distraction.

I had a couple of apps on my phone that claimed to help me pin down the latitude and longitude of wherever I was standing, and you might think that would be all I needed.  Hold that thought.

Anyway, after the burn was over, I discovered a new app: What3Words.  In theory it’s a cool concept: chop up the world into 3×3 meter squares, and assign three random English words to each square.  Why three and not two or even one?  Why not?

But here’s the thing: I already had apps that could pinpoint latitude and longitude down to four or five decimal places.  Why would What3Words be any more accurate?   It wasn’t, but hope springs eternal.

The problem, of course, is the technology I’m using: my phone.  It relies on cell towers and such to locate itself, and that system isn’t accurate enough.  At Alchemy, in Bowdon, GA, for example, we were so close to the Alabama border that some hippies’ cell phones kept switching to Central Daylight Savings time and back.  Consequently, the coordinates on my phone would change every time I went to the property.

The apps weren’t lying to me: they would tell me their accuracy was “within 14 m.,” for example.  Right now, I have one telling me that my location is 0.0005 miles from home while I am sitting in my study.  Not only that, a moment ago I was o.0002 miles from home, in another direction.  I haven’t moved.  You see the problem.

When I downloaded What3Words, I decided to test it out on the center of my labyrinth.  As usual, the results were disappointingly shapeshifty.  Just now, I got the four following combinations:[2]

  • sever.fits.amenity
  • endpoints.fade.bowling
  • relished.crucially.foraged
  • brisk.blackened.design

Not only that, but I don’t recognize any of those combinations as being any that I got on my first use a couple of months ago.

The actual location of the center of the labyrinth is 33.3760 N and -84.8035 W, and I know that because the satellite photo in Maps finally was taken in the winter and you can barely make out the labyrinth from space.  The what3words for that coordinate is perches.mermaid.pelting, which I do recognize as one of the options I got before.  The apps for latitude and longitude do not match those numbers.

So the phone and its attempts at geopositioning are the weak link in any system trying to map a space.  Of course, that’s usually not a problem. If I tell you that my labyrinth is at perches.mermaid.pelting, you’ll land close enough to find it.  (Or maybe not: see footnote 2.) But accurate?  No.

And here’s one pretty hysterical example: as I drove into Alchemy last October for early entry, I noticed that a bank of portapotties were in the middle of a camp’s marked area.  Hm, I thought, and then I rounded the bend and there was another set of portapotties smack dab in the middle of Camp Shameless.  They’re not that shameless, I thought.

When I tracked down the hippie in charge of portapotties, he said that when the portapottie company arrived earlier in the week, he used the latitude/longitude from the online map to show them where to place the banks of facilities.  Ah, I said, the map was visually accurate: if the portapotties were at the intersection of Boulevard One and Boulevard Four on the map, then that’s where they went.  But the coordinates, he kept insisting.  I finally got him to understand that while the coordinates might have been accurate, his phone was not.  He had to move every single bank of potties.

By the way, christian.auction.salmon is not on this planet.  However, curtain.auction.salmon is near Watson Lake, Yukon; chieftain.auction.salmon is near Contramaestre, Santiago de Cuba; and friction.auction.salmon is near Fermont, Quebec.

—————

[1] Marc will no doubt have plenty to contribute on the subject.

[2] Those locations are, respectively, the Dancing Faun in the northwest corner of the labyrinth; near Thompson Falls, Montana (!); on the other side of the fence from the Dancing Faun; near Mount Isa, Queensland (!!)