Inside the Mind of the Monkey

There are more than just bananas in there...

Month: February 2023

Brown Butter & Banana Old-Fashioned

February 14, 2023 / / 2 Comments

They say change is inevitable. You never know when someone is going to toss a pebble into your pond and set off a series of ripples that affect every decision that comes after. I often look back at the small choices that changed my trajectory and opened new worlds. Seeking out that first geocache, backing a kickstarter project for a burlesque school even though I had never seen a show, buying a set of cocktail tins to learn about making my own drinks and then, gentle reader, deciding that you needed to hear all about it. It really is amazing how those little things can set you on an entirely new path, like auditioning for a musical on a whim that set off a series of events that would lead to meeting and marrying the love of my life a decade or so later in that same theater. Call it luck, call it fate, call it kismet, but these are the little things that make up a life. So, with a nod to good fortune and being in the right place at the right time won’t you join me now as we stand and make the Brown Butter & Banana Old-Fashioned.

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Don Lockwood

February 7, 2023 / / 0 Comments

There is something about a bold booze forward cocktail slowly diluting over one big cube in a rocks glass. It has a gravitas that anything served with a straw in a highball or up in a coupe just can’t match. Of course, that’s all image, there are a ton of drinks served on a rock that go down smooth and even more frilly and silly tropical drinks that will knock you on your butt, but somehow that perception persists. They are the serious drinks, for serious drinkers. Taking that glass in hand, swirling it slowly by the fire while contemplating the unasked question, practically begs for a leather armchair and an impeccably tailored suit. “Dignity, always dignity” he’d answer, looking off into the distance before taking a slow measured sip and returning to his thoughts. That’s my kind of moment, but not always my kind of drink. So, with a nod toward the little tales we tell ourselves, won’t you join me now as we stand and make, the Don Lockwood.

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Brace Position

February 3, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Looking back on a half-century of life well wasted, I am truly shocked at how many of the things that kept me up at night did not amount to a hill of beans. Not that they didn’t matter or weren’t consequential in some way, but in how the things I worried myself sick about seemed to just disappear in recollection. Looking back, there are only a handful of times that stick out as those critical moments when I chose to go left when I could have gone right and ended up on a new path. It’s funny how it all seemed so important at the time only to have those crises fade into obscurity, evaporating like fog in the morning sun of hindsight. I fear I have spent too much time sitting on the end of the runway worrying whether my decisions would help me slip the surly bonds of earth and soar or crash and burn on the symbolic ash heap of my personal history. So with a nod toward that aeronautical metaphor, won’t you join me now as we stand and make the Brace Position.

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