Autumn is an improper drink, disappointing at best but mostly just insufferable. My poor attempt at a Sazerac festers on the patio table to my right. Though the weather is just warm enough to drink outside, the sun no longer reaches my face. It hovers shy of my toes now and wavers.
I should make a fresh drink. Too much bitters gives my cocktail the attitude of burnt espresso and each reluctant sip makes me shudder. Yet this foul drink coincides with my disposition too appropriately to move, so between the dropping leaves and sneaking wind I stubbornly force it down.
It does not taste of New Orleans.
The bar in the back of Muriel’s in Jackson Square is narrow, found by winding through shabby New Orleans-chic halls of antiqued paintings, picture frames and a brilliant white-walled indoor courtyard. We sit on high stools in this nook and order from leather-bound menus: straight bourbon for my guy and Sazerac for me. Graceful female hands fashion my Sazerac with a subtle swoosh of absinthe, measured-by-site rye and bitters and syrup, and the twisted oil of lemon peel. I try to memorize her movements.
Tasting my first Sazerac was a bit like reading Hemingway for the first time, conflicting yet impossibly engrossing. It is not an easy drink. Spice may dominate the first sip, but by the second and third a complex sweetness will rise and the flavors become more ingrained, more natural.
We carry our drinks to the balcony. Candles on the fortune teller tables in the square below flicker against approaching darkness. In less than an hour, the Quarter will be illuminated by the yellow glow of restaurant and shop windows reflecting against glossy, rain-wet sidewalks. Musicians will hold court on street corners and tourists will follow cape-clad hustlers into haunted alleys. Every evening in New Orleans is endless, punctuated by my slow sipping of a Sazerac as we find our footing on a decadent path.
Concrete is no substitute for wrought iron.
What’s left of the sunlight skirts the edges of our driveway now. It’s filtered through wiry branches and the eventual glare of headlights to leave me in an unsatisfying shadow. Autumn holds no reservation about the false promise of its burnt hues and crisp air.
A reasonless funk attempts to replace my patch of warmth. Giving in to its sleepy creep appears luxurious until I see everything in my vantage being removed, the potential, the possible, and the likely all sinking into a black horizon.
I rise from my familiar chair against all pressure otherwise and fold it into reluctant storage. Winter will eventually claim my spot on the driveway, but nothing more. Inside waits, a peculiar and contained interlude before we return to where we belong.
Until then, there is time to master the Sazerac.
