The Outlaw – a Still Life with Woodpecker Literary Cocktail
Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins has long been my favorite book, which means it is also the perfect first entry in what will be a series of literary cocktail recipes. Still Life is a reality-bending love story of princesses, outlaws, pyramids, and dynamite, among many other psychedelic topics — as is often the case with Robbins’ work. My goal here was to make a cocktail that not only served as a perfect accompaniment to the book, but would also distill it down into a glass — something that the protagonist, Bernard Mickey Wrangle, AKA the Woodpecker, would slurp with gusto.
For the spirit in the cocktail, I chose mezcal. Now, in the book, Robbins writes that tequila is the liquor of outlaws: “Now tequila may be the favored beverage of outlaws but that doesn’t mean it gives them preferential treatment.” But I disagree. Perhaps in 1980, when Still Life first hit the shelves, tequila had that kind of reputation. But given how regulated tequila making is — only blue agave, only in certain Mexican states — it just doesn’t scream outlaw to me. These days, I think tequila’s older, wilder cousin, mezcal, is the only drink for true desperados.
The next major element is blackberry liqueur. If you’ve read the book, you know that blackberries are a major character, constantly creeping forward and claiming territory with their thick brambles: “Blackberries. Nothing, not mushrooms, not ferns, not moss, not melancholy, nothing grew more vigorously, more intractably in the Puget Sound rains than blackberries. Homeowners dug and chopped, and still they came. Park attendants with flame throwers held them off at the gates. In the wet months, blackberries spread so wildly, so rapidly that dogs and small children were sometimes engulfed and never heard from again. In the peak of the season, even adults dared not go berry picking without a military escort.”
This is just one of the many mentions of those vengeful fruit-laden briars. Robbins at one point shares a lovely utopian vision of what Seattle would be like if every rooftop were planted with blackberry vines — but you’ll have to read the book for that one. I’d love to share all of the pertinent quotes, but this is already getting a bit wordy. Clearly, though, blackberries needed to be a central element in this cocktail.
To balance the flavors, we have some lemon juice and just a few grains of salt. Lemon and blackberry are a classic pair, and a slight touch of salt rarely goes awry in a cocktail. An egg white adds a delightful silkiness to the drink, as well as a beautiful foam. The final element, of course, is a black sambuca rinse. This adds just a slight hint of anise flavor, which complements the juicy blackberry and smoky mezcal beautifully — and, of course, is a reference to “the black wardrobe of the outlaw.”
Shake things up — as the world needs frequently according to The Woodpecker, otherwise “all the scum rises to the top” — and you have yourself one Outlaw. Yum.
Outlaw — a literary cocktail
Ingredients
Method
- Add mezcal, lemon juice, blackberry liqueur, egg white, and salt to a cocktail shaker, and shake for 20 seconds.
- Add ice and shake again.
- Pour around ¼ ounce of black sambuca into a coupe glass, swirl it around to cover the entire surface, and discard the extra.
- Strain the cocktail into the glass, garnish with a couple of blackberries on a pick, and serve.
If all of this seems a bit familiar, well, it’s not the first time that I’ve made mention of this particular book. You can read more about it — and get a few more vivid Robbins quotes — in my post Cowboys, Indians, & Outlaws.