I have no words. Which is ironic considering this is the second attempt at writing this post. Attempt number one was started around 1 am Wednesday morning and cut off when Mrs. Sharkbait came downstairs at 2:30 to convince me to go to bed. What I had written was a whiskey and gin fueled very harsh and over the top six hundred word reactionary venting post and direct call out of at least 2 members of my extended family that voted Trump. I’m glad Mrs. Sharkbait came down when she did. It got very personal, and would have been extremely wrong to run it. Not that I don’t think it had some decent points about wanting them to sit down with my daughter and explain to her why they voted to diminish her rights, as well as wanting them to explain why they voted to tank the economy. I even got rid of a halfway decent RFK/Sirhan Sirhan joke too.

Now I’m back to square one and it seems so is most of the country. We get what we deserve and clearly we deserve this kind of chaos and disarray. I don’t know where to go from here. This feels different than 2016 did. Back then it seemed there was a modicum of hope that the guardrails would prevail. This time? It seems way bleaker and we’re in for some dark times ahead.

Wanting a mental escape, I was in the mood for something Tiki related. I texted my friend who bartends at a tiki bar, and he suggested this concoction.

My friend told me to “definitely split that in half. Or you know, don’t” Unfortunately, I wasn’t left with much of a choice since I didn’t even have an ounce of lime juice, since the lime I had was drier than Ben Shapiro’s wife. Second, I wasn’t paying attention and added too much Allspice, when I was at the Falernum stage. So we’ll see how this comes out.

Alright, so even fucking up this is pretty good. It’s heavier on the Allspice (no shit), but I think increasing the following ingredients helped mitigate the damage of my not paying attention. It is also very strong, given this is a split base drink with two different rums at work. Even though it’s quite strong, it’s definitely still drinkable. As to the lime? My mistake definitely makes it so I lose most of what little flavor the miniscule lime juice I was able to add here. I think I might get some at the very end, but that might only be because I’m really looking for it. Speaking of the end, the finish is rum heavy still, but again, still very drinkable. Right in my wheelhouse for sure. It’s surprisingly not as allspice heavy at the end. I think the ice melting might have helped out that fact. I really wish I was paying attention when mixing to get a proper representation of this drink. Although for messing up the ratios, this still turned out pretty good. It definitely brings me to a warmer place mentally.

On the topic of messing up. We sure did. I think we as a society showed our true colors, which is extremely depressing. So what now? I don’t know honestly. My mindset right now just says we need to move onward because at this point, that’s all we can do right?

(Banner image courtesy Matthew Tetrault Photography)