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In his popular – albeit questionable and somewhat staid – novel Still Life with Woodpecker from 1980, Tom Robbins describes the following three ways in which one can remain love:
1. Tell love you’re going to Junior’s Deli on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake, and if love lasts, it can have half. It will stay.
2. Tell love you would like a keepsake and receive a lock of hair. Burn the hair in a censer from the dime store with yin / yang symbols on three sides. View to the southwest. Quickly talk about the burning hair in convincingly exotic language. Remove the ash from the burnt hair and use it to paint a mustache on your face. Find love Say you are someone new. It will stay.
3. Wake up love in the middle of the night. Tell him the world is on fire Jump to the bedroom window and pee out. Casually return to bed reassuring love that everything will be fine. To fall asleep. Love will be there tomorrow morning. “
For those of you who are too far out of New York’s tri-state and / or are not particularly inclined to vaguely appropriating a bag of spiritual “practices” or urinating out the window, I would like to offer a fourth – Hopefully more practical – suggestion to force love to stay: Bring love a delicious cocktail while it is in the shower to prepare for the evening. Extend your arm with a closed but sincere smile, as if you were handing him a bouquet of flowers. Tell them to take their time and when they’re done call the cab to take you both to dinner. Love will stay
If it’s the next morning and love is hungover from the day off, then a tonic that you gently place in the corner of your eye as you rinse the smell of last night’s cigarette from your hair, an act of pure poetry, is better than any Sugar-sweet melody on the radio. Love will think you are brilliant and it will stay that way (at least for the rest of the weekend).
I have a cocktail that I think is excellent for this enchanting endeavor. The Intro to Aperol is a stunning drink, perfect to whet your appetite and inspire the heart. It doesn’t require a syrup, swizzle, or garnish; just your good intentions and an honest shake of a god. Love will love it.
But of course you know love best, so this is just a suggestion. If for some reason you can’t make a cocktail, don’t let that stop you from showering love with a wet rune. A frosty large can or a flute filled to the brim with champagne can be magical and medicinal at the same time (and is a good reason to fill the refrigerator with one or both).
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Introduction to Aperol (Audrey Saunders, Pegu Club, 2006)
- 2 hearty dashes of Angostura
- ¾ ounce lemon juice
- 2 ounces of Aperol
- 1 ounce gin
- Optional: an orange twist
Add all of the ingredients to your shaker, then top it up with ice when you’re ready to shake. Cap your shaker and shake vigorously – this is no time to be restrained – and count slowly for 15 seconds. Strain immediately into a chilled coupe and serve immediately.
A note for my cocktail enthusiasts, you may have noticed that the specifications for the Intro to Aperol are a bit unusual – instead of sticking to a more Standard sour format of ¾ ounce lemon, ¾ modifier and 2 ounces alcohol, the Aperol serves as both a modifier and alcohol. The originality of this recipe is testament to its groundbreaking and tenacious creator Audrey Saunders, owner of the widely respected and sorely missed NYC Pegu Club (which sadly closed in 2020).
The story goes that the talented and meticulous owner tested numerous iterations of the idea before meticulously getting to its final Goldilocks sweet spot. I never had the pleasure of visiting the iconic institution and if this drink is any reference to its other offerings then my regrets are obviously justified.
