The tide rises and the tide falls, as the poet said, and those pages on the calendar just keep on turning. Some weeks feel like years and some years feel like months and some days, well, these are interesting times, aren’t they. Big things are happening or at least it feels that way. Not sure how things are going to wash out, but there is definitely change in the air, whether it’s for good or for ill, we will have to see. It is strange, but as we watch the once unimaginable become commonplace, ordinary life goes on in so many small ways. Kids still play football on Friday nights, the cats still need to be fed and we come together to celebrate the small joys that make up a lifetime. The tide rises and the tide falls, indeed, and we persist. So, in the spirit of hope for tomorrow and a fond remembrance for our past, won’t you join me now as we stand and make, Temptation at -77°.

Once again we gather, distancedly, to celebrate the birthday of the little sister I never knew I needed, fellow shenanigator extraordinaire and my dear friend, Jenn. When the bells rang out at dawn to announce that she was once again my elder and that respect must be paid for these many months, I knew I would have to break out my rusty tools to pay tribute in drink and too many words. It’s become a bit of a tradition here at Stately Monkey Manor to celebrate one of my favorite drinking and eating companions by having a glass without her. Over the last few years I have enjoyed some seriously amazing drinks for her birthday. That first year of cocktails from quarantine brought the delightfully complex Psycho Killer; followed by the prettiest drink I have ever made, the Porn Star Martini; the Ward 8, inspired by a random lemon we found in Boston while celebrating her birthday together and the truly amazing Oreo infused gin Negroni riff, known as Consensual Objectification. All of these drinks were sipped in her absence, so the joy was tempered, but my heart was in the right place even if my butt wasn’t. So let’s do it again.

The impulse for this drink has been floating around in the back of my head for some time. I had an idea for something loosely based on our Captain Rodney’s Temptation of Jezebel Sauce. It is a true treasure of a recipe from the Gulf Coast, made with pineapples, sweet apple, cracked black pepper, mustard seed and a little horseradish for just the right amount of bite. It is sweet and tangy and amazing with cream cheese or on a ham sandwich. I have played with a couple of options, but nothing quite clicked. I started with a tropical thing over pebble ice and then made a pretty amazing Rum Old-Fashioned just mixing the sauce straight in there. They were both good, but something felt off, like there was more fun to be had there, if I went further afield. That’s when it hit me that a classic Whiskey Sour inspired build might be just the thing. So, let’s try something crazy and see if it works out.

A special drink for a special friend calls for a special ingredient, Black Pepper Tincture, but it is super simple to make. Just take 2 ounces of high proof neutral spirit, I chose Everclear and add a teaspoon of coarse ground black pepper. Let it sit overnight and strain out the pepper flakes. That’s it, not too painful. Now that you are ready, grab your tins and pop in 2 ounces of Calvados or Apple Brandy, I went with Nashville’s own Corsair Apple Brandy; 1 ounce of pineapple juice, 1/4 ounce of fresh squeezed lemon juice, 1/2 an ounce of simple syrup, 3-5 drops of Black Pepper Tincture, a barspoon of Horseradish Mustard, one egg white and 2 dashes of Angostura Bitters. Add some of that artisanal ice and give it a good shake to the beat of Iron Maiden’s “Stranger In a Strange Land”, then strain your drink from one tin to the other and toss the ice before going for a second dry shake. Pour into something pretty , I opted for a Riedel Sour Glass and garnished with some dehydrated pineapple and a few drops of Angostura bitters.

Like the times we live in this drink is…interesting. It has an amazing mouthfeel and the ingredients play well together. It is reasonably well balanced, perhaps too balanced. I am tempted to cheat a little Campari in there, just to give a little bitterness on the finish. It all works though and I enjoyed it, but it is definitely a niche cocktail. I have had good luck before with mustard in The Wild Card and it shines here as well, but it is an acquired taste for the more adventurous, if you get my meaning. Which is also an apt way to describe the amazing woman I made it for, so I guess that works out.

Jenn and I have shared some incredible adventures together and separately across a couple of continents and I look forward to many more, if that calendar keeps cooperating. This particular drink was inspired by one of her more insane endeavors, that I had to, unfortunately, share vicariously, her time on the ice in Antarctica. Other than missing Jennsgiving that year, things on my end were not all that different. We kept each other up to date on life through our usual texts and occasional calls or video conferences while I worked around the farm, took care of the Grandma and tried to not be too envious. In the meantime, she was exploring the land of ice and snow, drinking her Old-Fashioned with Million year old ice cores and seeing things few ever have the opportunity to experience.

One morning, when I was feeling particularly walled in by circumstance, I got a text with this picture. There she was at latitude -77° South, longitude 166° East smiling in the perpetual sun of the Antarctic Summer, holding up a jar of our Temptation of Jezebel Sauce. In her limited space allowed, she had packed a piece of our lives and taken it with her. Sure, I was stuck at home in a way that I have not been in many years, but she was making us a part of her adventure. That’s pretty awesome and she is too. So happy birthday and much respect, my elder amiga! Thank you for always making life a little more interesting, when you aren’t making life a lot more interesting. I hate you more than I like to admit and yeah, that is the usual way too many words just to say, “I know.” Stay safe, stay sane and stay hydrated, my friend.