Submarine kiss

Dear Dave,

I poked around looking for a Créme Yvette recipe and couldn't find anything that felt truly compelling. Or anything that I could stomach.

I returned to the Créme Yvette website, which now just seems like a collection of carefully-curated lies by some hipster in Brooklyn who thought bringing back a long-dormant liqueur would score him some Kewl Points™ with the members of some starving artisenal booze collective.

One cocktail on the website continued to intrigue me: the Submarine Kiss.

On our walk earlier today, I kept calling it the Stratosphere. And I was going to draw a humorous parallel to my experience riding the Stratosphere in Las Vegas. Alas, I had the names confused and my Humor Bucket is devoid of anything clever regarding the Submarine Kiss.

Because god is this a dumb name for a cocktail.

I'd deconstruct its meaning if the drink made me feel anything more robust than pure apathy.

What intrigued me about this drink was that it required two preparation steps: the creation of the "silver fizz" and the layering of Créme Yvette.

The layering didn't work, maybe because I don't have a champagne flute. But even if I did, I don't think it would have made that much of a difference. 

Silver Fizz:

• 2 oz. gin (the website recommended Plymouth Gin, but I used London Dry Gin after confirming through a couple half-assed Google searches about the difference between the two)
• 3/4 oz. simple syrup
• 3/4 oz. lemon juice
• one egg white

This combination receives two different shakes in the cocktail shaker: a dry shake (one without ice) and then one with ice. I guess the one with ice is called a wet shake? That sounds so disgusting. 

Once the silver fizz has been prepared, you pour it over one ounce of Créme Yvette. The photo on the website makes it look like the Yvette magically sits on the bottom and the fizz floats on top of it. Maybe the champagne flute allows this to happen, but my result looked markedly different.  

Hide & go Créme Yvette: the Pepto Bismol Years

You know how whenever we made cocktails with Créme de Cassis we couldn't taste it no matter what? The opposite is true with Créme Yvette. 

I was positive it would be lost in the gin. After all, there are two parts gin to the Créme Yvette. 

I put my nose to the cocktail before drinking it, and there it was: the smell of moldy, flowery sadness.

And I took a sip. 

There was a banging at my palate's door.

Créme Yvette didn't wait for me to answer. She barged right on in and drunkenly accused me of not loving her. 

Before I could stammer an explanation, she punched me in the gullet and demanded an explanation. 

I tried to calm her down. 

But Créme Yvette isn't a lady, David. She is a boozy virago, all vitriol and pugnacious fire. 

Gin is no match for her. Lemon is no match for her. Sugar and egg and groveling is no match for her. 

She will find you and she will pummel you into submission. 

And if there is an explanation for this cocktail's lousy name, it is that Créme Yvette kisses like a submarine: a demanding, metallic, bulldozer liplock that tastes of flowery defeat. 

May you have more luck with her.

Love,

Joe

Bénédictine: chapter 3 of a cozy mystery

"Order! Order in the courtroom!" Judge Angus Turra bellowed as he banged his gavel, banged it harder than Anise had ever seen. She idly wondered if Judge Turra had a backup, in case he destroyed this one.

Brandy was at the defendant's table, nearly curled into a ball in the wooden chair that seemed enormous, given her thin, wobbly frame. Her striking amber-colored hair and demure powder blue dress stood out against the dark chair, dark table, dark judge's bench - dark everything, really. But even if she hadn't stood out for being so beautiful and, in contrast, bright, she would have stood out for the siren-like, snot-filled wailing she'd been emitting since she came up the steps of the Sweetberry Grove Courthouse.

"BAAA WA THEY THIN KIIII MAA DAAAA!!!" she wailed, for at least the eighty-third time since Anise had come and sat unobtrusively in the back of the courtroom.

"Young lady!" bellowed Judge Turra "You'll have to calm down or I'll have no choice but to send you to jail for contempt! Or is it disturbing the peace? Aw hell, bailiff, can I just throw her in the holding cell for being damned annoying!?"

The bailiff, shaking with repressed laughter, could only shake his head vigorously: no.

Benedict E. Nelson, Brandy's lawyer, leaned close and tried to whisper into her ear.

What a brave man, Anise thought, getting his handsome face so close to Brandy, who was flailing like a garden hose on full blast.

"Now, Brandy," Benedict said, "you know that they have to go through this process, since your fingerprints were found on the murder weapon, to clear you of killing your daddy so that they can get on with finding the real killer. The more you cooperate, the quicker this will all be over with."

"BAAAIIIIIII CAAAAAAAANT!" Brandy wailed, reaching a pitch that Anise feared might bring every stray dog in Sweetberry Grove to the courtroom.

"Yes, my dear. Yes, you can," Benedict said to her. And winked.

Anise felt her stomach starting to lurch. He winked!? At Brandy!? Really, what could a handsome, smart, well-dressed, successful man like Benedict see in... her!?

The ploy worked, though; Brandy's voice came down out of the stratosphere and back into the range of normal human hearing, though it still sounded like gibberish to Anise.

"Whaaa I have dooooo?" she asked in a tired, forlorn, but strangely hopeful voice, like a kid who has just been told that, despite having a tantrum, they can have a super gummy light saber ninja candy. Or whatever it is kids were into stuffing into their mouths these days.

Yvette Altelier, the prosecuting attorney, had already lost patience, though.

"Your Honor," Altelier cooed, smoothing her lilac-colored power suit's skirt. She stalked toward the bench on stiletto heels that could have poked holes in floors that weren't made of solid oak, and laid her hand on the judge's bench.

Anise Starr's stomach flipped. Altelier was a wasp in court, and her stinger was pointed at Brandy.

"Your Honor," she repeated, her aquiline eyes shifted mercilessly in Brandy's direction, "enough of these histrionics. If it pleases, the court, the defense calls to the stand its first witness: Ginny Alexander."

Judge Turra nodded.

The courtroom doors swung open dramatically, and in stalked Ginny Alexander. She was dressed in a striking Marchesa dress from the spring 2016 collection. Sure, it was from the ready-to-wear line, but it was appropriate mourning attire: black, striking, and the mark of a powerful woman in control of her body and mind.

Ginny sneered imperceptibly at Brandy as she strode by. She situated herself at the witness stand, straightening her back and gazing icily at the jury.

For the second time in half a minute, Anise Starr felt her stomach sink. Ginny Alexander was no shrinking violet, and it wasn't a secret that she despised her step-daughter. Anise watched Benedict fiddle nervously with the hem of his suit coat.

"Mrs. Alexander," Yvette Altelier began.

"Rickey," Ginny interrupted. "I reverted to my maiden name after that coward murdered my Gordon."

A buzz of excitement vibrated through the courtroom.

"Ms. Rickey," Yvette corrected. "Tell me about your relationship with Gordon Alexander."

Ginny's porcelain hand fluttered up to her throat, grazing the powdered skin with apprehension. "Gordon Alexander was the love of my life. He found me at a time where I was at my lowest. I had just lost my darling Pomeranian, Schatzi, in a tragic fire. I was bereft, unmoored - an absolute disaster. But Gordon saw past that. He saw that underneath my grief, under my heartbreak, there was still a spark. And when he asked me to marry him, six weeks after we met, I knew I couldn't resist."

"Couldn't resist his money!" Brandy cried out, desperately.

"Order in the court!" Judge Turra hollered, banging his gavel.

Brandy didn't seem to hear. "She never loved him! She's the one who had him killed - just to get her inheritance!"

"I said ORDER!" Judge Turra bellowed, his face becoming purple.

Brandy began to sob hysterically. "But she did! She did."

The gavel hammered again and again until it splintered on the bench.

An eerie silence filled the courtroom. Dust mites floated in the waning sunlight.

Judge Turra glared at Brandy, sweat glistening on his brow, anger emanating from his every pore.

But before he could say another word, a soft sob erupted the silence.

A sob from Ginny Rickey.

A cast of eyes turned to her. Her hand had fluttered to her mouth.

"No," Ginny whispered. "No. She's right. I did want him dead. But so did..."

And that's when the shot rang out.