Author Archives: Dale

In our never-ending quest to answer the question, “What is Art?”, we cannot overlook the contributions of the Museum of Bad Art (surely founded by fellow Lichtenbergians-in-spirit).

Please head over and waste an hour or so looking at the extremely bad art housed in the virtual wings of this highly respected institution, and then, as an assignment, enter the MOBA Official Guest Interpretator contest.

Or if you like, interpretate one of the other works on display.  No, you may not use this work.

If brandy was made out of sparrows there would soon be no sparrows.
–GCL, J.22

At first I thought I was going to have to make something up, but then I remembered: Café Uxmal!

August of 1987.

Back in the day, every year after GHP, my adorable bride and I would go on vacation.  Since her perception of my time in Valdosta was that it was one long party—and certainly 20 years ago I was partying more than I am now—she felt entitled to a hella vacation when I got home.  The fact that I had actually been working from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day for six weeks and would really like to relax carried no weight in our decision.

My bride—being of an excitable, not to say distractible, nature—defined “vacation” as the process of going and doing as much as humanly possible in the most jampacked place you could think of. In 1985, it was Washington, DC.  In 1986, it was New York City.  And finally, trying to get to somewhere on time in the heat of August and noise of Times Square, I snapped.

Today, of course, I am possessed of a serene equanimity that permits me to endure such nerve-wracking experiences without breaking a sweat.  I have even been to Walt Disney World during spring break and did not flinch.  Part of that is due to the wisdom of age, but I must say that part of my survival kit is what I learned in the summer of 1987: too many people around you?  Put yourself alone on that white, white beach, and listen to the waves.  Ahhh.

But back in Times Square, 1986, I snapped.  “Next year,” I said, “we go to a beach, and we do nothing.  We’re going to relax.”  My partner looked dubious, even scornful, but, probably recognizing that I was not going to be much fun otherwise, she accepted my pronouncement.

I should have known better.  I was thinking St. Simon’s, the Gulf Coast, Daytona even.  My lovely first wife, in the meantime and on the other hand, settled on Cancun: passports, international flights, ancient ruins in inaccessible jungles, tawny cabana youths in crisp white shirts, excitement in every way.

It actually wasn’t bad, of course.  The beaches were glorious, the tequila was never-ending, and if you’ll pardon my saying so, the congress was splendid and nonstop.  I wore a Speedo for the first and only time in my life, and of course would have worn less had I been able.  The ruins were inspiring: do not take a day trip, fork over the bucks for an overnight at the Club Med.  I drank margaritas to excess on the trip out to Isla Mujeres, such that while other daytrippers were jumping overboard into the warm sea on the way back, I was puking my guts out in the head.  It was the best of vacations for the both of us.

Our last night in Cancun, we walked away from the bright lights of the main tourist area and explored the edges of downtown, looking for a restaurant that didn’t have hamburgers on its menu for unacclimatized gringos.  We found the Café Uxmal.

I forget what I had as my meal, but after dinner we were offered coffee, and I decided to go for the eponymous house specialty, Caf´Uxmal.  It was a grandiose production: strong Mayan coffee to which was added, in succession, Kahlua, brandy, and Xtabentún, each poured flaming from cup to cup before being added to the coffee.  Finally, it was topped with ice cream, and I was in heaven.

Here’s a similar production, a little flashier, but also apparently flaming all the liqueurs at once:

After a glass of that, we wandered back to the hotel, then out to the beach, where I will discreetly fade to black on the luxuriant summer evening.

In writing this, I remember that we actually brought a bottle of Xtabentún back with us from Cancun twenty-two years ago.  We actually never made the coffee, I don’t think.  There certainly doesn’t seem to be much missing from the bottle, which has sat at the back of my liquor cabinet since 1987.  I pour a little into a shot glass and taste it, and I wonder why in the hell it has not been my apertif of choice for half of my life now.

It is a pale yellow-green, a little paler than Rose’s lime juice.  It coats the sides of the glass.  The bottle says licor de anis dulce con miel de abejas, and it is one of the most delicious drinks I have ever had.  I’m taking another sip.

When added, Kahlúa floats on top of it in a nice miniature pousse café.  Consumed together, they make me forget my dietary forbearance of weekday alcohol.  Yes, I think I will have another.

What is this stuff?  Thank goodness for the internet.  I’ve assumed for twenty years that it was some kind of cheesy Mexican absinthe ripoff, but I was wrong.  I actually am in possession of a rare commodity, it seems.  The honey predominates, with a smooth, sweet anise finish that lingers not unpleasantly.  Goodness, it’s tasty.

Let me put it this way: before I share this bottle with anyone else, I have to make sure there’s a ready supply somewhere within my grasp.  One more, to celebrate this delightful Lichtenbergian Assignment, the first of our new year together.  I love you guys!

Now let me see if I can figure out how to get this memoir from my word processor over to this internet thingie over here.

Terry wrote in email:

“Since there seems to be some interest in this article, perhaps a Lichtenbergian assignment might evolve from it. We could describe making or imbibing our most exotic drink and the circumstances surrounding it. And of course this would have to be written with a certain panache.”

He was referring of course to this article from the New York Times about the Old-Fashioned.

I have a model for our assignment, taken from Jigger, Beaker, & Glass: drinking around the world, by Charles H. Baker, Jr., originally published in 1931 as The Gentleman’s Companion: the exotic drinking book.  This is from the foreword, in which he pooh-poohs the pale delights of Prohibition:

We also doubt if any lemonade social ever afforded a thrill like the moonlit night in Ceylon when we went to a Hollander friend’s beach bungalow out beyond Galle Face, where we swam in the blood-warm Indian Ocean and drank enough of his Flying Fish cocktails to do, and lay on the cool sand and listened to Tauber sing Dein Ist Mein Ganzes Herz on the gramophone.  Then when we swam again we slipped out of our suits to make the water feel better, and finally, when it was very late indeed, we dressed and said goodnight and vowed eternal friendship to our host; then for precisely no reason at all dismissed our waiting carriage with a flourish of gross overpayment and walked all the way back in our evening clothes through a new quiet rain to the jetties and the motor launch, just in time to prevent one of our best American cruising friends from consummating bribery of the Quartermaster on the good ship RESOLUTE into letting him hoist a purchased baby elephant—whom he said was Edith, and over whom he politely held a Burmese parasol of scarlet oiled silk—from a hired barge onto the forward cargo hatch in a sling!

Marvelous stuff, and that’s just the forward.  There follows a COMPANY OF 267 ASSORTED POTATIONS.  Here he is talking about an actual drink:

THE RANGOON STAR RUBY, a Wonderful & Stimulating Cocktail from Lower-Burmah

In 1926 we disembarked in Burmah from a round-the-world ship, and spent several days there before hopping off to Calcutta in a little “Bibby” boat carrying a mess of Mohammedan pilgrims headed for Mecca as deck passengers, and who did all their own cooking right down there in plain sight.  In Rangoon we joined up with several folk in the Strand bar of evenings to chin about the romantic Mandalay country far up the Irrawaddy River, and to talk over gems with Hamid and his brother from Colombo and Bombay, and to acquire a really fine zircon for someone else and a set of star sapphire dress studs for ourself.  One American headed out on leave from certain ruby mining operations up-country told us he had invented himself a drink that everyone up at headquarters liked so well he was going to shout it to the world so that no man might be denied its virtues.  He popped behind the bar before we could say “knife” and whipped up the following mixture which, due to its color, he had christened the Star Ruby.

Take 1 jigger of good cognac, 1/2 pony of cherry brandy, 1/2 pony of French vermouth, 2 dashes each of orange bitters and lemon phosphate, then for added flavour 1 tsp of kirsch, or 1/2 tsp of maraschino.  Shake with finely cracked ice, pour into a wine glass leaving a little ice floating, and let fall 6 drops of grenadine in the center of this chilly expanse for the ruby color touch.

So now you have the flavour of it, hop to it!

Did it.