Cocktail Hour, Issue No. 31: The Old Faithful

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Enjoy a sober Negroni, a Rye on Fire, a Brooklynite and so much more. Subscribe and I’ll mainline my brain straight into your box! Cheers.🍸

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Hi, y’all! We made it to Cocktail Hour!

This week our cocktail is The Old Faithful, in honor of our book pick: Saving Yellowstone by Dr. Megan Kate Nelson. Keep reading below to get the cocktail recipe and hear my talk with Dr. Nelson.

But before we get to all that, we have to talk about Daylight Saving Time. In case you missed it, the Senate voted this week to make DST permanent. So if the House approves and President Biden signs the bill, we'll set our clocks ahead in March 2023 and leave them there.

Check out this great data illustration from the Washington Post that shows when the sun would rise in your region throughout the year. Here in Detroit, it would be 4-5 a.m. in July and between 9-10 a.m. in December.

You can read the Washington Posts's full explainer article here. And here's a great backgrounder on DST from my favorite podcast, 99 Percent Invisible. (Oh, and yes, it is Daylight Saving Time, not SavingS time.)

Ok. Let’s get to it!

What’s fizzy just like the geysers of Yellowstone? The Old Faithful cocktail! It's the signature drink of Saving Yellowstone, the new book by Dr. Megan Kate Nelson.

You can find a variety of recipes on the internet – some include powdered sugar and grapefruit juice 😶 – but Dr. Nelson keeps her version simple.

The drink gets its geyser-like fizz from either sparkling water or wine (depending on how sauced you want to get). The mudpots of Yellowstone are tinted red and yellow from iron oxide, and our drink gets its color from the Campari, a dark red Italian liqueur that is known for its bitterness. That tartness is balanced out with lemon juice and St. Germain, a French liqueur made from wild elderflowers.

It’s a fun drink that celebrates the world’s most famous geyser and the park’s 150th birthday. And, just like its namesake geyser, it can always be counted on to impress guests! Even Lovey likes it. Cheers!

The Old Faithful

Directions: Add Campari, St. Germain and lemon juice to a shaker with ice. Shake, shake, shake until cold! (~20 seconds). Strain into a glass and top with champagne or sparkling water. Enjoy!

Yellowstone wasn’t “discovered” by the Washburn Expedition in 1870 – the land and its wonders had been known to the Indigenous people who called these lands home for thousands of years – but it did prove that those trappers weren’t all inveterate liars.

The stories that had been trickling East, along with the public lectures after the Washburn Expedition, capture this strange place in the public's imagination. So when Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden approached Congress to fund a survey of the basin, they said yes and sent him on his way with $40,000. Hayden set off in 1871 with nearly three dozen men – biologists, geologists, botanists, artists, cooks, hunters, packers and more – to map and catalog the wonders.

Saving Yellowstone tells the story of that expedition as well as two other men whose fates are bound up in the region: Jay Cooke, a money man who was raising funds to build the Northern Pacific Railroad through the territory between the Great Lakes and Pacific Ocean; and Sitting Bull, the great Lakota leader who spent his life trying to protect his people and their lands from encroachment by white settlers.

Nelson dives deep into journals and archives to bring these stories alive with a novelist's eye. She tells history as a story, but also brings it into context. While many books about the American West focus on the region in isolation, Nelson – who grew up in Colorado – connects the dots between what was happening on the Plains and mountain passes and what was happening in the rest of America during the Reconstruction years (1865-1877).

Remember, the story of Hayden's survey is happening just six years after the end of the Civil War and as the country is trying to find a path forward. The Homestead Act of 1862, as Nelson writes, was designed to reward those who were loyal to the North – Black and white – with land. And surveying Yellowstone, along with the scientific riches, would provide even more to give:

President Grant, at the time, was also trying to protect Black citizens in the South, sending soldiers to enforce the 13th (abolishing slavery) and 14th (citizenship rights and equal protection) Amendments. But he was also set on colonizing the West and "civilizing" the Indigenous people.

And so, Nelson writes:

Don't miss our conversation about the book -- and us making Old Faithfuls! Note: We had a technical sound issue, so skip ahead to about 1 minute.

If you remember last week, I told you about giant spiders that will fall from the sky all along the East Coast starting in May. Well, this week, I’ll just warn you not to look up. Researchers studying the tree canopy of the Amazon found more than 800 new species of flies. But they’re real pretty.

1. "Me and My Truck: A Love Story" by Christian Wallace in Texas Monthly

Christian is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers. In this essay, he weaves the stories of his truck, his grandfathers’ trucks and stories, symbolism, Texas identity and more. It’s really a lovely read and I may have cried a few times thinking of my own favorite truck: My dad’s old Ford Highboy.

2. "No Place You’d Want To Go: On Writing About Flint" by Kelsey Ronan in LitHub

Such a beautiful essay about how you write about -- and have a relationship with -- complicated places. How do you acknowledge the flaws while not demeaning the people who choose or who must live there? The essay is specific to Flint, but I think the rumination is valid far beyond the former home of GM.

3. "The Things I’m Afraid to Write" by Sarah Hepola in The Atlantic

Fear of professional exile has kept me from taking on certain topics. What gets lost when a writer mutes herself?

The internet has very mixed feelings about this piece. They want her to be more specific: What couldn’t she actually write about? Or to not have written it at all: Is she a rape apologist? And she lets herself too easy: she’s writing in The Atlantic, after all. How canceled could she be? But I felt this very viscerally – not in the idea that there specific things that I could have written and didn’t, but more in the ideas of how we self–silence. When are we brave enough to speak up and when are we not?

Yes, that Arnold. It’s a masterclass in political communication. You have to watch it. I’m on my third viewing.

Oh, and if you’re still looking for some readings to help you with the context and backstory of this conflict, I put together a reading list.

Someone turned on the sun here in Michigan this week. I walked out of my house in 60 degree weather and was ready to strip down and sunbathe like these sea lions living their best life in the Galapagos.

Ok. That's all for this week friends. I'll see you next week for Cocktail Hour. And don't forget to check your inbox Tuesday for the mid-week edition.

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What is Bar\Heart? It is Amy Haimerl’s weekly newsletter and podcast about belonging in America and the places we call home. Plus cocktails! You can read more about it here. The midweek edition includes intimate conversations from the heart; the Friday Cocktail Hour is a round up drink suggestions, book recommendations and other detritus I pick up on the Internet and in life.

If you enjoy these shenanigans, please consider subscribing. And please tell a friend! I’d love to mainline my brain straight into their inbox, too.