Believe it or not, one of our favorite shows to watch during quarantine is on Twitter. DadHouse, “the best imaginary reality show on the internet.”
This weekend, we’ve asked the stars of DadHouse to tell us about their own Weird Quarantine Obsessions:
A Tray of Manhattans with a Side of Harvey Danger, by Siân Griffiths
Jerry/ Daphne: Who needs vermouth?
Sugar: We’ve got bourbon—we can make Manhattans!
— Some Like It Hot
There’s no time like an international, multi-month quarantine to perfect a cocktail, or, at least that’s what I’m telling myself. Everyone needs a bright side, and this is one I’m seeing in retrospect, weeks after plowing through the initial slug of boredom. The truth is, I don’t remember choosing my obsessions, but two have emerged: listening to the Harvey Danger song “Cream and Bastards” and embarking on the quest to make the perfect Manhattan.
The why behind “Cream and Bastards” seems obvious to me. The song fits squarely in my favorite genre of music: poppy songs about depressing topics. Harvey Danger takes on the rise of bastards with a throbbing bass overlaid with springy guitar and drum lines, tucking the lyrics into the music in ways that are inventive and surprising and that make me love the song more every time I listen. Even as Sean Nelson assures me that “someone’s gotta lose—it’s probably you,” I feel filled with fight and adrenaline and, therefore, hope. It’s the alchemy of anger that punk and alternative musicians have always been able to perform.
The source of the Manhattan obsession was less obvious. It started in whimsy, a spur of the moment choice. I had a Zoom happy hour to attend and needed a drink, and I chose the one that reminded me of my Writer Camp, the place I first drank a Manhattan. I won’t lie: I did not like the cocktail then but drank them all weekend in spite of this, realizing my distaste for vermouth would keep me from drinking too much delicious bourbon too quickly. But I suspect my growing affection for the Manhattan has other roots as well. It’s the drink shared in the 1959 comic masterpiece Some Like It Hot, when Marilyn Monroe’s Sugar Kane Kowalczyk learns who’s got bourbon and who’s got vermouth and a sudden and spontaneous party breaks out as girls pile into a too small train bunk. It’s a moment that should evoke horror in an age of social distancing, but it’s beautiful nonetheless.
And now, the Manhattan is the experiment I’m continually making, the challenge of finding a spicier vermouth (right now, I’m digging Ransom), altering the proportions, upping the percentage of bourbon, adding a tiny bit of dark brown sugar simple syrup, finding the right amount of bitters, the perfect cherry.
The Manhattan is what happens when people pool what they have to make something beautiful. The Manhattan is the drink you slosh on yourself as your train screeches to a halt. The Manhattan is our eventual coming back together. The Manhattan is the drink of camp fire and community. The Manhattan is the best people in the best mood. The Manhattan is a red Solo cup in an editor’s pocket so his hands are free for a game of catch. The Manhattan is the drink I associate with the best time of my life, and it would see me through this long night.
In real life: Siân Griffiths lives in Ogden, Utah, where she teaches creative writing at Weber State University. Her work has appeared in The Georgia Review, Prairie Schooner, Cincinnati Review, Booth and other publications. She is the author of the novels Borrowed Horses and Scrapple and the short fiction chapbook The Heart Keeps Faulty Time. Currently, she reads fiction as part of the editorial teams at Barrelhouse and American Short Fiction. For more information, please visit sbgriffiths.com.
On DadHouse: “@borrowedhorses, kid sister to Chris Gonzalez (I started as an obnoxious young tattle tale and evolved into the world's most sullen and bratty teen, which is a suspiciously easy role for me to play)”
If you’d like to try this obsession yourself: “Here's my current recipe: take one glass with ice cubes and pour in a couple of healthy glugs of Larceny bourbon, a splash of Ransom sweet vermouth (which has a nice spiciness to it), and a teaspoon of simple syrup. Stir. Add a Bordeaux maraschino cherry. Drink.”