I've been accorded a few honors in my time. I've won (minor! regional!) awards for my writing, I've received compliments on my work from people whose own work I love and respect, and I've been groped by a decent cross-section of good-looking people. I am content with my place in the world and I envy no one. Well, I envy very few.
However, I've never known one great honor until now. I didn't even know I'd missed it until it was looking me in the face, and I beat my chest proudly and howled, "Shrikey!"* The seas parted, the skies exploded in fireworks, and everyone who's ever dissed me was simultaneously afflicted with a sense of "Oh my God, I totally suck."
A few months back I was talking with Carl Carlson, one of the two owners of Tigertail. He'd served me a drink for which he didn't yet have a name. Since I'd been talking about all the hours my girlfriend gave to the Rat City Rollergirls (honestly, we're lucky to see each other four nights a week between February and October), I off-handedly suggested he call that rocks glass of Maker's Mark, St. Germain's elderberry liquor and lemon juice a "Derby Widow." I chuckled, he smiled, I drank, I mentioned the episode in my Life Behind Bars review [0], and that was the end of it.
Or so I thought. A few weeks later, Carlson sent me an e-mail to tell me that people -- strangers! Never met 'em! -- were coming in off the street and asking for frosty, delicious Derby Widows. He'd forgotten our conversation (and, for a moment, what he'd served me), but he soon made the connection and began pouring Widows for everyone who wanted to know the kind of solace that one experiences while waiting for one's girlfriend to return from a night of knocking down other girls.
Until last weekend, I didn't know that it had made the regular menu; I thought it was something Carlson would make whenever someone bugged him. But there it is in black and white, right below the also magnificent Ginger Lemon Drop and Cucumber Wasabi Bloody Mary.
Ordering one, I was happy to discover that the Derby Widow is every bit as delicious now as it was back in January, with a strong start that mellows into a delicate finish and one of the cleanest aftertastes I've ever known. It's even better when enjoyed immediately after one of the Kiuchi Brewery beers with which Tigertail is so well-stocked, and with a dish of the bar's "Sweet, Spicy and Salty Mixed Nuts," which are every little thing the name implies.
So, yeah, I've got this "I've-named-a-drink" buzz about me today, and it's nice. I like it. But none of this would have happened if Rat City Rollergirls supporters and NWsource readers hadn't picked up on something I wrote in my dumb little bar column and taken it to the bank. (Er, bar.) Thanks, y'all. I'm gonna send my moms a picture of the menu so she can put it on the refrigerator.
So, who's up for a drink at Tigertail? If you're game, and you happen to be reading this sometime before October, there's an almost 50 percent chance that I'm free this evening.
*I have no idea what "Shrikey!" means. I heard a couple of kids yelling it on a rollercoaster, so I presume that it means, "This is great; I enjoy this" or "I am in imminent danger of losing bladder control."
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