We all love an apricot, right? They work well in drinks but they’re the red headed step child of the stone fruits. In my youth I ate them dried and my sister and I would pretend they were the ears of our vanquished enemies. Hey, there wasn’t a whole lot to do in Vermont with six months of winter, four months of rain and mud, and two months of intensely humid weather where thick swarms of insects were biting you and flying into your mouth, ears, any orifice they could find. Ah yes, in those days imagination and 29 channels of cable were the sole providers of entertainment when we’d be trapped indoors with the elements slapping and howling behind against the walls. But what happens is you adapt. You go sledding, you go around the neighborhood and shovel walks for some extra scratch, you watch the same damn Van Damme, Schwarzenegger, and Stallone movies on VHS over and over again, maybe throw in the occasional gem like They Live or The Untouchables.

Oh yeah, there were also snowball fights aplenty with anyone available. Depending on how heavy and water laden the snow was, these could be icy balls of death for car windows, glass panes in houses, and other kid’s faces. One of my greatest triumphs to this day involved a moment when I summoned some sort of inner strength and precision and faced down a schoolyard bully while visiting my friend Sean’s condo area..

We were 14 or so and outside after a nasty storm had blanketed half the northeast. One of those great days where the snow had come down so thick we didn’t have to go to school because the roads were too treacherous. The three of us, me, Yeti, and C-Ya, were standing around and throwing a few snowballs here and there when this major douche Carl Fenglar appeared around the corner and challenged us all to a snowball fight. “I”ll take Yeti,” he said, and the teams were split then and there.

It was a lackluster affair as none of us in the original trio really wanted Fenglar around. He was one of the worst braggarts ever, also a fraternal twin, but his brother was mellow and tolerable. Carl always boasted he was the better looking, more athletic, and more skilled of the two, but no one cared.

We lobbed a few here and there for a little while until Carl came from around a corner and bushwhacked C-Ya and I, unloaded a few icy balls of death our way, and sent us running. We could here his vicious laugh behind us, picture his evil sneer as we dashed off.

The two of us ran down a hill and ducked around the corner of a building and began to load up with a few of our own. We stockpiled a few for the next strike and I fashioned a particular one that was perfect. A tightly packed bomb. Heavy with ice and the size of a baseball. I squeezed and honed it in my gloves to perfection, shaped it to a grim specification.

We peeked around the corner and saw Fenglar and Yeti looking around for us. Fenglar turned his head and that’s when we jumped out and unleashed on them. C-Ya lobbed a few but one shot from me was all it took, the most perfect throw in all my life, uphill from a distance of thirty feet. I threw it has hard as I could and it connected with Fenglar’s left ear and exploded with a satisfying splat, sending him reeling to the ground and clutching his head in agony. He screamed as he thrashed and C-Ya, Yeti, and I all laughed. Down but not out, he stood, seething with rage, vengeance in his eyes as he honed in on me, intent on murder and brutal retribution. Fenglar was the better athlete than I. Stronger. Faster. Larger. He came barreling down the hill at me yelling that he was going to kill me and even worse, without mention, we all knew what was coming, a dreaded “whitewash” which could be two things–either having your head dunked into the snow or having snow shoveled into your face and into the collar of the jacket. The former, humiliating, the latter, horribly uncomfortable.

Fenglar bounded down the hill like a Visigoth and I took off running. He gave chase for a while and stopped, seeing me panting in my jacket, hands on knees.

“I’m going to fucking kill you!” he said, his left ear bright red. This gave me strength to run again, but he was gaining fueled by his narcissistic rage. I ran up the hill, bad move, as it slowed me down, so I went back down again, narrowly missing the extension of his right hand as he lunged for any piece of my jacket.

I could feel his breath on my neck as I ran as fast as I could, the lactic acid building in my legs from pumping so hard in the deep snow. Going down the hill gave me some speed, but I knew Fenglar was a step behind me. I waited until the last possible second and turned on a dime just as he dove, and missed his tackle as he fell face first into the snow whitewashing himself. He was defeated. Out of breath, his rage somewhat subsiding, he knelt there in front of me covered in snow, digging his fingers into the collar of his jacket to remove the icy burden, and as he fought to recover, the boys up on the hill cheering me on, I gave him my own personal coupe de grace. I ran down there while he sulked in his own defeat and double shoveled snow with both my arms, swooping a pile of snow into his face and down his collar in a mighty whitewash as he knelt there helpless. The boys cheered and I victoriously walked up the hill to meet them.

Fenglar sat there in the snow for quite some time just looking down. “Let’s go inside,” C-Ya said. “Yeah,” Yeti said. “Ok,” I said, then hesitated and looked down the hill, meeting Fenglar’s eyes, “Hey Fenglar, fuck you.”

Later that week, in school, Fenglar caught up with me between classes and told me his inner ear had been jostled which is why he had been unable to catch me that snowy winter morning, otherwise, “Otherwise, I would have easily caught you and whitewashed you multiple times. But anyway, I owe you a major whitewashing, you prick.”

“Whatever, Fenglar,” I said.

Once a foe has been vanquished, it no longer holds sway over the psyche or mettle of its former prey.

Yeah, yeah, I know we used this cocktail name is bad. I couldn’t think of anything and we used Apricot Crush a couple of years ago for another drink. Sue me.

Apro-Quaffer

1 oz. Japanese Whisky

1 oz. Fresh Lemon Juice

1 oz. Apricot Punch

.5 oz. Noyaux

.25 oz. Amazake Macadamia “Orgeat”

.25 oz. Apricot Syrup

.25 oz. Spiced Rum

1 Dash Shio Koji

Shake, strain over BFR.

So what have we here? Well, this one is for sure a Rustic Canyon cocktail. What that means is it embodies the ethos through and through. Nothing wasted, not even the pits. So, something fresh and seasonal, something fermented, and something that should have gone in the bin. In the case of the fermented item, we reused old fermented stuff to get it going. All you have to do is freeze your “waste” from making amazake, unthaw and use at your convenience. It’s already been inoculated up the wazoo, so you don’t have to keep buying koji rice. A steady pint will do.

I guess the question would be what does it do? Well, it adds a layer of umami to the drink which matters because it’s not a flavor you see often in beverages unless you’re drinking a bloody Mary (tomatoes, Worcestershire). It’s harder to squeeze umami into a drink than you think but probably also easier than you think. This is why we love the amazake nut orgeats so much. What umami does exceptionally well is boost the flavors of other ingredients around it which is why that wood fired pizza you had the other night was giving you such mouth pleasure. It’s why your stoner goulash in junior year of college was such a hit with the button mushrooms and canned tomatoes and all.