Tag: Champagne

The Madness of King Donald

Royalty

The Reign of Error hit its six month anniversary today, and in an interview with the NY Times, His Orangeness really lays bare what we are dealing with as a nation.

It is not so much that what Trump said was surprising as it was a confirmation of his cluelessness, his ignorance, and his deeply held belief that he has been anointed the absolute monarch of the U.S.

The Times interview is a must read, even if it is difficult to get past the periods of meaningless word salad gibberish to understand the amazingly un-American approach to the conduct of our government.

Trump’s misinformed conception that the head of the FBI is someone who is, or should be, directly reporting to the President was part of his whine that included the unfairness of Attorney General Jeff Sessions having to recuse himself from the Russia investigation (and the Russian Front has been very active this week).

The interview included elements of his astounding lack of knowledge on health care, saying insurance costs $12 per year, while threatening Senators that they must vote for the McConnell plan for Trumpcare or risk losing their seat (as though he were some two-bit gangster).

Meanwhile, the royal family nepotism runs deep, and was a primary source of the Russia investigation issues Trump had to deal with this week. During the Times interview, Trump even referenced the Don Jr. collusion meeting in Trump Tower last summer that likely caused the suicides of a few Trump communications people.

It has been 240 years since our Revolution to break free of an insane king, and it looks like that time has come around again. While we think about those things we’ll need to fix when the smoke clears, an American Royalty cocktail will help.

Taken from Kindred Cocktails, American Royalty is a variation on a Kir Royal, a bitter variant to match the bitterness the concept of American royalty should be to any true patriot.

1 oz Gran Classico

1 oz Creme de Violette

4 oz Champagne

Add the liqueurs to a flute, top with Champagne

Cheers!

Vive la France!

75

Today, France delivered a major victory in the fight against resurgent fascism with the landslide election of Emmanuel Macron over Marine Le Pen.

The Washington Post set the scene well, saying:

The anti-E. U. French leader Marine Le Pen’s larger-than-expected defeat Sunday in her nation’s presidential election was a crushing reality check for the far-right forces who seek to overthrow Europe…Given one choice after another since Trump’s U.S. presidential victory, Western European voters have delivered mainstream candidates to office despite a post-November sense that an anti-immigrant populist wave was washing over the Western world. Far-right candidates in Austria, the Netherlands and France have faltered.

Many battles remain, but in keeping with yesterday’s post, let’s have a drink to keeping the world safe for democracy for another day. In this case, the World War I inspired cocktail is the French 75.

In yesterday’s post, I quoted from President Wilson’s address to Congress seeking a declaration of war against Germany, using the famous part about making the world safe for democracy. However, Wilson’s closing is also important, and also echoes the aspirations we need today:

It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts—for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.

To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other.

This speech was 100 years ago, yet here we are again.

The origin story of the French 75 varies between being developed at Harry’s New York Bar in Paris, or by soldiers in the field looking for something refreshing to drink. Like its namesake cannon (the one used by Harry Truman’s outfit) the drink is smooth, but packs a wallop.

The recipe as taken from Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails by Ted Haigh, aka Dr. Cocktail, is:

2 oz gin

1 oz lemon juice

2 tsp sugar or 1 tsp simple syrup

Champagne

Shake gin, lemon juice and sugar over ice, pour into a champagne flute or collins glass, top with Champagne, stir gently and add lemon peel garnish.

Cheers!