By Tyr Symank
One of the few things I miss about my employment with the government agency du jour is the local architecture. I’m a born and raised Pacific Northwesterner. We love our mountains, we love our coffee, and we love our fortress of solitude. When a PNdubber is home, they do not want to be bothered. If someone approaches the front door, it’s for religion, cookie/candy sales, a scam, or all three. NW architecture is not big on street-facing communal space. If a rain dweller has friends over, we entertain them in the privacy of our kitchen or, if we’re feeling especially insouciant, the backyard. Parading about socially in the front is for hippies and college ne’er-do-wells. You want a slow roll from the local PD? Because that’s how you get a slow roll from the PD.
This is not the way in the Virginias, both West-by-God and decaffeinated. In Virginia, we wave to our neighbors, even the ones we don’t like…especially the ones we don’t like. We walk over and interrupt lawn mowing to share a story neither of us give two shits about, just to have the interaction. Accidentally bought too much hooch? Well, that calls for a knock on the neighbor’s screen door. Well yes sir, it is a decent day finally. Sure, I’ve got time to sit. Say, did you hear about the lady two doors down? Yeah, with her tennis coach. I know it sounds like an 80’s movie, but God choke me on this bourbon if I’m lying.
The front porch is where everything good and about 10% of everything bad happens. It’s a place to relax, reflect, commiserate, feel bad about your yard, and do absolutely nothing about it but take another sip because it’s too damn hot to do anything else. I created this drink just for that. Make it by the pint or the pitcher.
Ingredients
- 6 basil leaves
- Ice
- 1 oz Chicken Cock Bourbon
- 1 oz Willie’s Snowcrest Vodka
- Splash of Sprite
- 8 oz lemonade
- 1 sprig of mint (Optional, depending on presence of HOA lady)
Directions
- In a 16 oz mason jar (or pint glass if you’re fancy), muddle five or six fresh basil leaves. You should have them growing on the back porch.
- Fill halfway with ice
- Add 1 oz of Chicken Cock Bourbon. If you really are in Virginia, you’ve got a plastic hip flask of bourbon laying around; use that.
- Add 1 oz of Willie’s Snowcrest Vodka. Again, Virginia, use whatever your neighbor has. Make sure it smells at least a little like vodka.
- Splash in some Sprite
- Fill with lemonade
- Stir
- Garnish with a sprig of mint if the HOA lady is on your porch, otherwise just drink the thing or you’ll be scraping stomped mint leaves out of your floor boards till winter.
Word to the wise: keep the ingredients handy for refills on the porch. You don’t want the neighbors in your kitchen.
