FOR JOHN LYON, ON HIS 85TH BIRTHDAY
Some say the cocktail’s genesis
Was — fiat decoctae — New Orleans:
The Sazarac, wry antithesis
Of Northernmost mixorians.
Some say it claims Midwestern root
In sipping supper clubs that branded
The Brandy Old Fashioned—and put
As paid the spirit tongues demanded.
Some say the how and when of it
Was sourced more cosmopolitan—
A toast to Peter Minuit
Who drank the first Manhattan in.
But whiskey, bitters, wine and fruit
(As democracy often shows)
Will always win the local vote
Decocting taste with “one of those.”
I was just thinking ‘concocted’as in, Ted concocted a story.
This reminds me, in France in 2015, I think it was, I spoke to a party of 3 about my ideas, and one said, We were just talking about eugenics. Then i went to the US and I was turning a corner, I think somewhere around the upper west side, or perhaps further down town, and i thought of that encounter, in the context of people perhaps not being that interested, and i saw what looked like a smaller and older version of the same man, or at least the same nationality and social class.
Witty poem. Thanks, JOB.
I love it. I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but it goes down like that Manhattan (very cold, and—please!—not too sweet).
Heh.