Pure pride

Dear Dave,

As you know, this past Friday, I moved all of my furniture to our new apartment in Polish Hill. Now that I've unpacked 98.7% of my (and your) stuff, I'm getting more and more excited about our future together.

Today, many cities, including Pittsburgh, are celebrating gay pride. It's a time of joy and hope, a time of advocacy and reflection, and it's the first gay pride since gay marriage became legal in all the land. A monumental occasion.

Unfortunately, though, today has been somber. We woke to the news of a mass shooting in Orlando, Florida, at a gay club called Pulse. Latest news reports have the death toll at 50, making it the largest massacre in our nation's history. So I am sad today because our brothers and sisters were victims of a merciless, senseless crime. And all we'll hear from politicians and the NRA is how their "thoughts and prayers are with the victims." Reports from Gov. Cuomo in New York that the Empire State Building will go dark tonight and that the new One World Trade Center will illuminate in a rainbow. All this tragedy just breaks me.

I had planned all week to make a gay pride cocktail with one of your infused vodkas tonight. Earlier in the day, I wasn't sure I was up for it. I changed my mind when I decided I'd make it a tribute - to both being part of the vibrant, lovely, wonderful gay culture and to the victims of this brutality. It may seem like an empty gesture (or a pointless, fruitless one), but it isn't meant to be.

Of the two vodkas, you made me, one lends itself more to a cocktail: the blackberry-blueberry-thyme. I'm still deciding what to do with the equally delicious and ingenious dill cucumber vodka.

So for now, I present you with:

Pure Pride

Ingredients:

2 oz. infused vodka

splash of simple syrup

3 muddled strawberries

club soda

sage*

Muddle the strawberries in the bottom of a glass. Add a splash of simple syrup and the vodka. Drop in a few cubes of ice and top off with club soda. Garnish with a leaf of sage. 

This drink, darling, is gay. Gaaaaaaaay. And I loves it. It's the perfect summer cocktail: light, refreshing, and perfect for an evening on the porch. Or, as with tonight, chatting with you on FaceTime. 

The success of this drink is that it doesn't taste like vodka. The blackberry/blueberry infusion with the muddled strawberry masks the vodka in a subtle, disarming way. That is to say: too many of these and you won't remember a thing. I particularly liked the vodka-infused strawberries at the end. I ate the sage leaf with the strawberries - a taste sensation that I can't say many people would like, but I thought the pepperiness of the sage mixed quite well with the berries' sweetness. 

I know we aren't keeping track, but I think this was my first successful foray as a cocktail maker. I'd pat myself on the back, but let's be honest: there's nothing revolutionary with what I've done here. 

But still: two thumbs up. Way up. Or should I say Gay Up?

Happy Pride!

Love,

Joe

*Sage, according to medieval thoughts and practices, means domestic virtue. Apropos, no? Rosemary for remembrance would also have worked, but alas - I had no fresh rosemary.