Embrace Your Late Summer Sensations With Warday’s

There is a line from a poem by Eileen Miles that I scroll through my head: “Every season has cracks through which winter or fall can seep.” And while Eileen continues to proclaim June the “most perfect flavor”, for me September is undoubtedly the time of the most eclectic turning points.

I guess September makes me think a hell of a thing. There is something in this time that immediately strikes. As I scanned the offers of hotels and sofas from friends of New York, my mind also penetrated through memory and experience. It is often difficult to say which precedes the other. In the text, I beg my friend to tell me something good and true. They answer: “In September, the sunlight changes perspective, and everything seems softer and kinder.” I repeat this to myself in the following days.

When I meet my beautiful friend Britt in Midtown for drinks and sympathy, we share the record-breaking moment when we discover, to our mutual amazement, that we both console ourselves with the notion of parallel universes; that there are endless possibilities of lives that we, no doubt, live somehow somewhere, not tied either to space, or to time, or to current realities. The love that has faded instead continues, the house is owned in Palm Springs, the family is created. Different people live, work in different cities, make different choices. Without being stuck in time, we are somewhere else, realizing all our desires.

I think about it as I spend the last couple of days here in Harlem, tall noble brown stone, solid wood and mysterious. (This is my shit.) Several years ago I had a dream that I was living with my parents in New York in a brown house very similar to this one (in fact, my parents were divorced and both strongly disliked the East. I knew it was September because it still felt like a summer day and it was hot and itchy in my new school sweater, my hands were full of textbooks. There was a fire escape next to my room where I sat to smoke and I also had an orange tabby cat (my dad is allergic in real life). It was so familiar, I felt in my place. Just like the cracks in the seasons that allow others to seep out, I also think that there are times when we catch a glimpse of one of our parallel lives, a glimpse through a sliding door.

Today in Harlem, as I write at an antique table, my owner’s orange tabby cat is sprawling on the rug, I catch a glimpse of myself (the other). Clouds have fallen – winter seeps through them. The maple on the outside shows its first faint yellow tint, I’m itchy, but happy with my short sleeved sweater.

The Warday cocktail is something I really adore, but don’t see very often in the wild, which is very annoying. Calvados attracts autumn, gin cheers up, green chartreuse enhances the effect, and sweet vermouth turns it all into a hypnagogic and powerful drink. This is the first cocktail that came to my mind to maintain my contemplative mood, to challenge the season, to adapt to transition periods, to end difficult days when it is necessary to make things seem softer and kinder.

How to make a Varday cocktail

Ingredients:

  • 1 ounce calvados (apple jack can be used, but I recommend calvados; it’s nice to sip neat)
  • 1 ounce gin
  • ¾ ounce sweet vermouth
  • ¼ oz Green Chartreuse
  • Garnish with a lemon twist

This is a well blended cocktail, so make sure the mixing glass and compartment are well chilled and frosty. Place all ingredients (except for the side dish) in a mixing glass and cover with a piece of ice – large pieces first, then small pieces. Stir well by pressing a bar spoon against the glass and adding ice if necessary. The wetter the ice, the less time you have to work, so keep that in mind. You usually need to stir until the mixing glass is frozen again, about 30 seconds. After mixing well, remove the freezer jumper (not before) and strain into a glass. Place lemon zest over a glass and garnish.

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