Too Hoth to Handle
We move on to The Empire Strikes Back with “Too Hoth to Handle,” which Tales & Spirits serves in a Darth Vader goblet. The bar compares the Rebel Alliance’s battles against the Empire to Scotland’s struggle against the English empire in the eighteenth century. Tales & Spirits also draws another parallel between the Jacobites’ defeat at the Battle of Culloden to the Rebels’ defeat on Hoth. Just as the Rebels went on the run after the Hoth battle, Bonnie Prince Charlie went into hiding on the Isle of Skye—where he reportedly created a special elixir that became Drambuie, a key component of this drink. (It’s a stretch, I know, but the Vader head goblet is pretty cool.)
•2 ounces Amontillado sherry
•2/3 ounce Drambuie
•2 dashes of Spanish bitters
•2 dashes of Force tincture
•2 slices of orange
Shake, strain, and serve over crushed ice in a Darth Vader goblet. Garnish with homemade maraschino cherries, mint sprig, and dehydrated orange.
Photo credit: Jeff Cioletti
Bright Tree Swizzle
To close out the trilogy, “Bright Tree Swizzle” is a nod to Return of the Jedi’s central location, the forest moon of Endor. And, in honor of the Ewoks’ home, the drink is full of forest botanicals. It even includes Redwood shrub (recipe below), a tribute to California’s redwood forest, where the Endor scenes were filmed.
•1 1/3 ounces Death’s Door gin
•1/3 ounce Skinos Mastic liqueur (made from trees!)
•2/3 ounce Smoked Redwood shrub (see recipe below)
•½ ounce lime juice
•2 dashes of Force tincture
Build and churn in a clay mug over crushed ice. Serve with a short straw and garnish with a cinnamon stick, seasonal berries and dehydrated lemon wheel.
For the Redwood shrub, combine 1 kilogram of mixed forest fruits, 1 bush mint, 8.5 ounces of raspberry vinegar, a little over ¾ of an ounce of Laphroaig Scotch whisky, and 1 kilogram of sugar.
The Wretched Hive
The efforts of Tales & Spirits inspired me to create a drink that draws from elements of the Star Wars universe. This one’s a little less complicated, though boukha isn’t always the easiest to find outside of major cities. If you live in a state that allows online retailers to send you alcohol through the mail, you’re in luck.
This cocktail combines a spirit produced on Tatooine (sort of) with a pun. Boukha is the national spirit of Tunisia, which, of course, served as the exterior shooting location for Luke’s and Anakin’s home world. The “hive” is a reference to the honey in this drink. (Get it, bees?) Add a splash of dry mead to double-down on the hive. Then, throw in a lime peel garnish to give it some green, in honor of our dear, departed bounty hunter friend, Greedo. Boukha Bokobsa is the brand you’re likely to find, given its international distribution. It’s a fig-based distillate that’s been in the founding Bokobsa family since the mid-nineteenth century.
•2 ounces Boukha Bokobsa
•¼ ounce dry mead
•¼ ounce honey
•Lime wedge
Pour the boukha, mead, and honey into a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Stir vigorously. Pour into a wine glass or tulip glass. Squeeze in lime, garnish with what’s left.
Chapter 2
The United Fermentation of Planets
Full disclosure: I’ve always had a bit of an on-again, off-again relationship with Star Trek. I’ve never been a full-on Trekkie—the fact that I used that word proves it, because I believe the preferred term is “Trekker.” But my earliest Star Trek memories predate those of my preferred franchise, Star Wars. I was five when I first visited the galaxy far, far away on its initial theatrical run in 1977. But my recollections of watching Kirk and the crew go back as early as—I think—1975. I was three years old. The show had been off the air for about six years, but the local TV station, Channel 11 WPIX-NY, broadcast reruns at around five or six every evening. I remember knowing who many of the main characters were, at least by look, if not always by name. I also had vivid memories of a vicious, albino, ape-like creature with a single horn on its head. Instead of being terrified, I always waited for that being—which, I later learned, was called a mugatu and appeared in the 1968 episode, “A Private Little War”—to make a return appearance. I was consistently disappointed.
Until I was at least seven years old, I thought the Enterprise crew’s enemies were the “Clee-ons.”
Through the years I would catch late-night episodes from time to time, and I’d see the movies either in theaters or on VHS. When The Next Generation started, I watched the pilot, “Encounter at Farpoint” and set my VCR for the subsequent two or three episodes—but I couldn’t keep up. I’d drop in and out of the series. “Oh, Scotty’s in this episode? I’m in.” But by my early twenties, geekdom had become ridiculously tribal. Remember what I had said earlier about choosing a side? I chose Star Wars because I was, at best, a casual fan of the Trek series (I hadn’t even seen a single episode of Deep Space Nine during its entire initial run) and the movies were usually hit or miss. The Star Wars prequel trilogy became closer and closer to becoming a reality (mid-’90s at this point) and that was giving me all sorts of warm and fuzzy feelings that I just wasn’t getting from Trek.
But when Star Wars episodes I through III turned out to be…well, not so good, I realized that maybe there was a little room in my life for Trek. The J.J. Abrams films arrived at just the right time for that. Eventually, I binged some series episodes (including the aforementioned DS9) and realized that, in a lot of ways, Trek was essentially Cheers in space.
If there’s one thing that gives me hope for the future it’s that when so many genre properties get so much wrong about the role alcohol—or, at the very least, synthehol—plays in everyday life, Star Trek gets so much right.
Diplomacy
Let’s jump back to the tenth episode of the original series, “The Corbomite Maneuver,” which first aired on November 10, 1966. The Enterprise crew encounters a spinning, cube-shaped entity in deep space and they soon make contact with the imposing, bald, big-headed alien Balok, who seems anything but friendly. The alien informs them that the cube—which shadows every move the Enterprise makes—is just a warning. Next up: annihilation. Our fearless Federation explorers eventually end up in a standoff with Balok and, after a series of bluffs on either side, a delegation consisting of Kirk, Dr. Bones McCoy and a young, somewhat whiny Kirk-in-training named Dave Bailey (actor Anthony Call), is beamed aboard the enemy ship for a confrontation with Balok. Our heroes immediately learn that the frightening-looking being whom they thought was Balok, was, in fact a puppet. The real Balok had the body of a follicle-challenged child—seven-year-old Clint Howard, whose brother, Ron, was still trapped in Mayberry at the time and had yet to give him a cameo in just about every movie he would later direct (including 2018’s Solo: A Star Wars Story—see, we all CAN get along). It wasn’t young Clint’s voice we heard, however, as he was dubbed to sound like a grown-up. (Pretty good lip-synching job for a seven-year-old, though.)
And, as it turns out, Balok is a pretty nice guy. All of his warnings and challenges were just tests to determine the Enterprise’s true intentions. What he really yearns for are diplomatic relations with intelligent races from across the stars (his ship was completely crew-less, so he was probably quite lonely and bored). They sealed the deal over a punch bowl full of