No, this isn’t some strange, debaucherous new festival out in the middle of the desert, its a weird blend of ingredients that taste pretty good when shaken up with other ingredients. There are days when the lightning bolt of desire has been outlanding the ability to put together a cohesive cocktail. Many failures as of late. Some of them deserved and some not. A couple were learning experiences I had to relearn which was not only humbling but annoying but Ive always been a bit muddled. My mother told me once when I was eight or so that Id forget my head if it wasn’t attached (In case you’re wondering, yes, my apostrophe button is still fucked. If it doesn’t auto correct it isn’t going to contract. Sorry and yes its [like to my left here] driving me insane. I really want to put an apostrophe between that damned t and and s but if I do the button has the potential to go haywire and just go on and on and on and never stop.). Yes, your friendly neighborhood aging bartender has been a dreamer, folks. Theres not much else you can do when you grow up in the country except talk to your dog and your invisible friend while wandering around and finding strange things in the woods.

The trees behind my childhood home were dense and vast. A little bit out there past our backyard and a slight cliff leading to a sometimes marshy grasslands. Once under the cover of the trees, it all became a little too still. The only sound was the trickle of a stream running from our pond. The scent of pine was strong, a thick carpet of needles untouched except when I went back there. Each day I tried to go a little further until one day I saw a rusty metal fold out chair under a tree further down the creek and it creeped me out so much I didnt return for a week.

When I went back there was a sense of being watched and all I could think of was that a witch lived in there somewhere and shed lock me up like the Hansel and Gretal story but the fear provided some sort of strength as it does when we are too stupid to know any better. I mean, I was four or five, maybe six. It does seem outlandish that I was out there wandering around at that age. Where were my parents? No idea. This was the eighties, dude, and I had a wonderland of many hundreds of acres with which to stroll and discover on my own…Well, not entirely true…I had Jason with me, my invisible friend. He was a bit older and coaxed me on in a gentle, teasing manner with no peer pressure, just knowledge. He had been out here many times. Even lived in a house somewhere before I was born. The more I think about it, the more I wonder if he was some sort of non malicious brownie or forest spirit guiding me or just bored.

I went deep one day and Jason convinced me to follow the creek as far as it would take us. Trust me, he said. I walked past the chair for the first time and for another couple of minutes until the smell of woodsmoke hit my nostrils. Strange and out of place considering it was early summer. We walked and the outline of a house came into view. A ramshackle establishment where discolored plywood pieces of the house were exposed in various increments of assemblage and askew additions with corrugated metal roofing stuck out amidst a mad jumble of trees allowed to grow up alongside the structure. There was an old shed with a tree growing through it. No one had mowed the lawn in a long long time which causes the forest to begin to take over.

A cacophony of dog barks exploded and I knew where I was. This was the abode of Old Man Whippet. I had heard my dad speak of him. Dont go close to that place he had told me. The guy is crazy. Lots of dogs. Hes prone to shoot any trespassers.

The instant that thought hit my mind I saw a faded yellow Posted Private Property sign tacked to a tree. Violators will be prosecuted it said at the very bottom. Was I a violator and what the hell did that even mean? I had seen Old Man Whippet just once driving down our dirt road in his jalopy of a pick up. Wild white hair and a mess of dogs in the bed whooping it up. The truck an extension of the man and vice versa. Rust colored or maybe just entirely built of rust itself. Hard to tell. Somehow the wheels turned.

The woodsmoke was from a brush and trash fire in his front yard. The old school, redneck recycling method. I stood still and crouched, itching to get a glimpse of the man. Then a gnarled voice stifling the dogs. Who the hell is out there? he said. Oh shit. I remained still, hoping that by becoming one with the trees he would perhaps go away. Lets get the hell out of here, Jason whispered in my ear. I ignored him. Why? I have no idea. There was no reason for me to even want to see what the hell was going on in that area because even my imagination had difficulty conjuring much. It was simply an old man and his dogs and a typical Saturday ritual. I think spying on him was the draw. Watching from the woods like some forest deity.

A twig snapped and the form of Old Man Whippet came into view. The brush was too dense for him to clamber through, but he tried anyway and I saw a hunched outline coming toward me, shotgun in hand. The dogs began shouting again and swarming toward him. Goddamit, he said, who in the hell is back there? A colorful usage of cusses and unintelligible mutterings streamed from his mouth as the dogs surrounded him trying to find some purchase through the scrub he had allowed to grow over who knew how long.

I yelled fuck you, you old fart! and took off running. I did imagine him firing off a few rounds at me as I flew home. The chair. Who did it belong to? The only story I could generate was that maybe it was where Old Man Whippets wife would go while she was alive and go and stare off into space when she missed her children who had all drifted off long ago. Whippets Children…A ragtag clan of them scattered in remote locales throughout the globe…Procreating and teaching their young ones the ways of the woods…Burning trash, breeding dogs…

Cochelery

1 Part Coconut Milk

1 Part Condensed Milk

1 Part Cachaça

1 Part Fresh Celery Juice

2 Parts Cane Sugar

Blend it all up. If you’re confused on the measurements, heres a template:

100 grams Coconut Milk

100 grams Condensed Milk

100 grams Cachaça

100 grams Fresh Celery Juice

200 grams Cane Sugar

I started out by emptying a can of condensed milk into the blender and went from there. The contents of said can were 365 grams. Why celery? Well, the walk in was looking pretty sad last night. Not even a withered bulb of fennel to steal. I saw the celery sitting there and remembered a cool cocktail from the end of last year Angel did called Bishops Blood. A quite yummy thing with coconut, cachaça and some ancient celery shrub. The three go quite well together.

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