Holy Spirits! Charleston Culture Through Cocktails
As someone who can never have too many books, let it also be true that I can never have too many cookbooks and cocktail books. Or cocktails. Ha! Or maybe not, I mean nothing says enjoy your at-home cocktails like world-wide pandemic and fear of the world going up in flames. And in the words of the Cocktail Bandits, “The more you sip the better they might taste.” Seriously, if I’m going to follow any bandits in this upside down world, it’s going to be Cocktail Bandits.
Some of you, many of you may already know and follow Taneka Reaves & Johnny Caldwell at their blog, Cocktail Bandits, but if you don’t, behold, they take their cocktail gospel seriously.
Their book Holy Spirits! Charleston Culture Through Cocktails was published in 2018. I bought a copy for my husband for father’s day because he’s the cocktail guru in our house and also, what better than a gift for him that I also get to enjoy. Right?
What I love about this book is that it celebrates cocktails through Charleston’s culture, both the past and the present. Ms. Reaves & Ms. Caldwell, experts in their field, give good cocktail, but they also share their love of Charleston, its people, the bar and restaurant gurus, and local craft makers.
The book is a good mix of fun, easy cocktails like the Carolina Shandy (Honey Basil Soda & Pabst Blue Ribbon) and more sophisticated cocktails with unique ingredients like the Upstate Revival, or the Afro Alchemy which uses edible gold flakes as a garnish! They provide a super helpful section in the back full of different syrup recipes too. So, if you’re mostly at home these days and relying on basics from your local grocery store, or searching for new, refreshing cocktail recipes, this book is full of both!
Here is the recipe for their Fresh Blush cocktail. It tastes like relaxing on the beach with your best friends, like vacation and family lake house visits, like joy and fun. We could all use a bit of joy and vacation, right now, even if it’s only in our backyard with the dog for companionship.
Fresh Blush
Ingredients
60 ml (2 ounces) Cathead Vodka (I used Absolute, because it’s what I had.)
25 ml (almost 1 ounce) Fresh Lime Juice + Lime Wheel for Garnish
50 ml (1.7 ounces) Fresh Pineapple Juice
25 ml (almost 1 ounce) Grenadine
Tonic Water
Instructions
Add vodka, lime, pineapple juice and grenadine to mixing tin; fill with ice. Shake passionately. Add ice to clean pint glass. Strain cocktail mixture over ice. Gently top cocktail with tonic water. Lovingly place pineapple leaf (if you have one!) and lime wheel garnish. Sip slowly with straw.
For me, sharing food and drink is about so much more than what’s on the plate or what’s in the glass. It’s about connection, learning, sometimes comfort, sometimes revolution. It’s about celebration. And Holy Spirits! Celebrates a gorgeous town and it’s cocktail culture in such a delicious way.
