mezcal

Dearly Departed | a cocktail for All Souls’ Day

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Recipe

  • 1 oz Mezcal
  • .75 oz St. Germain Elder Flower Liqueur
  • 1 oz Dry Vermouth
  • .5 oz Dry White Wine
  • 1 dash Celery Bitters (optional)
  • Garnish: Olive

Add all ingredients to a mixing glass with ice. Stir until chilled and diluted. Strain into a chilled coupe and garnish with an olive.

* * * *

I can easily forgive you for not knowing that All Souls’ Day is different from yesterday’s All Saints’ Day. If yesterday was about honoring all the saints in the world today, today is about honoring all those that have died and gone on before us. (Together, these two days constitute Mexico’s “Day of the Dead”.) This day helps us honor our ancestors–both in blood and spirit–to feel their legacy, support, and presence in some way.

It also lends itself to rich symbolism for a great cocktail! This drink is made entirely of spirits (get it?). The Mezcal and celery bitters recall the darkness of death, while the olive brings to mind the salt of tears for those that have passed before us.

But the vermouth and wine bring complexity that reminds us there’s more to it than that. Death is not the end of the story. That’s when the saintly liqueur St Germain brings a bouquet of sweetness and brightness through the darkness. It’s a lovely, delicate, complex drink, like our spiritual legacy.

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Ash Wednesday Cocktail

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Recipe

  • .75oz Mezcal
  • .75oz Peated Scotch
  • .75oz Aperol
  • 5 dashes Orange Bitters
  • 2 dashes Smoke and Salt Bitters

Build drink in an old fashioned glass over a large ice cube. Stir all ingredients. No garnish.

* * * *

With a new church season, we have a new cocktail. This one is named after Ash Wednesday, the holy day that begins Lent.

Lent is a season of fasting, reflection, and repentance. We focus on our mortality, our sins, and the darkness in the world that led Jesus to the Cross.

Ash Wednesday specifically is a time that Christians have crosses drawn on their foreheads in ash as an outward sign of their internal awareness of their death and sins. It is reflective, somber, simple, elemental, and dark.

With that in mind, I crafted this cocktail, which is strong, dark, and smoky with a subtle bittersweetness underneath it all. It really is meditative and lovely, while also packing a real punch.

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“O Desire of Nations” | Ambassador O’Fashioned

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For each of the ancient “O Antiphon” prayers in this week preceding Christmas, I will be offering prayers and a variation on an Old Fashioned.

Today’s O Antiphon: “O Desire of Nations”

This is a beautiful Messianic title. Jesus is king not simply when it comes to authority and power, but also as the object of our desire and affections. And having a common desire is meant to unify, not divide. The prayer reminds us that God formed us for himself and we are not truly ourselves until we are in him. It also emphasizes the global nature of this People he has called he has called as his own.

Today’s Prayer & Scripture

O King of the Nations and their Desired One, the Cornerstone that makes us one: Come, and deliver us, whom you formed out of the dust of the earth.

The title here comes from an older translation of Haggai 2:7: “I will shake all nations, and they shall come to the Desire of All Nations, and I will fill this temple with glory”. For further reflection, you can read Isaiah 2:1-5 for a picture of the peace that God brings to the nations. Also read Ephesians 2:11-22 to see what this looks like on an interpersonal level when Christ is the cornerstone of our life together

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“O Dayspring” | Radiance O’Fashioned

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For each of the ancient “O Antiphon” prayers in this week preceding Christmas, I will be offering prayers and a variation on an Old Fashioned.

Today’s O Antiphon: “O Dayspring” (or “Radiant Dawn” or “Dawn of the East”)

The entire premise of Advent is that we sit with the darkness of the world and our hearts, waiting with anticipation and longing for light to break through. Then, at Christmas, we joyfully celebrate that the light has come and will come again. But today, we feel the night and wait for the Radiant Dawn, tasting its light–literally. (I’m super proud of this cocktail, by the way.)

Today’s Prayer & Scripture

O Dayspring, Splendor of everlasting light and Sun of justice: come and shine on them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.

Isaiah 9:2: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined.” All of verses 1-7 are a classic Advent text worth your time. For further reflection, read Malachi 4, the last chapter of the Old Testament, where the prophet says that “the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings”.

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