“One of Those”

bartender pic

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.”

Comments

  1. Louise Orrock says

    I was just thinking ‘concocted’as in, Ted concocted a story.

  2. Louise Orrock says

    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.

  3. Big Jon Bully says

    Witty poem. Thanks, JOB.

  4. Quin Finnegan says

    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).

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