There is a reason why my tongue tingles with excitement from the slightest taste of alcohol. Sure, there's the anticipation of the good times to come, and the sweet savor of the Sancerre that I'm pouring, but there's something more. It's the memories of sips past, especially those first ones I took as a child.
On occasion, we were allowed to live la Vie en France growing up. We were allotted about a shots worth of the wine my parents were drinking in Sherry glasses that we believed were kid-size wine glasses. We tasted wines from Kendall Jackson to Tattinger, and I dare say developed a distinguished palette along with our trials.
And on occasion, when the meal was over and my parents poured themselves a night cap, we became very comfortable ordering our own - Creme de Menthe. While other children knew hot fudge or Hershey's syrup as the perfect ice cream topper, we politely asked for a little Creme de Menthe over our little glass bowls of Breyer's Vanilla Bean. With the amount of food I consumed as a child, I never felt any effects from the wine or wonderful green stuff, but what I experienced on my tongue brought more dimension to the meal.
Last week, in Tortola, I was greeted with the question - 'What would you like to drink?' upon touching down in Beef Island. While my white wine order was filled pronto, Peter's Red Stripe was put on hold until he finished Heske's specialty cocktail du jour. It's name, the Tropical Turtle. It's special ingredient Creme de Menthe.
It was Heske's newest concoction - his piece de resistance after mixing up a lineage of creative cocktails the night before, including a Frog on the Beach, a Gorilla Snot, a Green Gremlin, a Kermit de Menthe, and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. The drinks were three parts hard alcohol, one part simple syrup, and a splash of Creme de Menthe, turning each and every one of them into the most alarming, iridescently green color you can imagine.
While I sipped my Chardonnay, Peter got his Catastrophe de Menthe cocktail out of the way, and joined the ranks of those brave enough to die their insides green. For the rest of the week, the magic green bottle played a starring role in our non-stop party. I'd go so far to say that it reached Celebrity status fifteen times over. It even signed Mike's shirt.
It spent its days daring those with more courage than I to take a shot, losing to the one-dollar betters, and peer pressuring those with absolutely no interest in drinking the substance to top off their gin and tonics.
I slyly kept the green juice off of my lips the entire week. And as Heske poured its last sweet drop into his glass, and saluted the fun, memories, and catastrophe that it brought to our days, I felt kind of bad that I had missed out. That I hadn't given it a chance, especially when some of my first memories of drinking, included it as the best ice cream topper of all.
So last night, after the Sancerre, after the grilled cheese dipped in my roasted tomato soup ...
About midway through Moneyball, I took an appropriately timed intermission to make myself a bowl of ice cream topped with the catastrophe. And it tasted as good as I remembered.
Heske, to add to your list of cocktail recipes: a Creme de Menthe milkshake. And I promise a year from now in Tortolla, at the reunion (crossing my fingers), I'll become as Creme de Menthe cool as everyone else.
Lo.
