Hurricane season is here
Plus two books that make fine summer reads
Rock you like a hurricane
Hurricane Beryl ripped through the Gulf last week. I felt its effects way up here in Ohio, where we got swampy wet air, drizzle, and high winds.
Hurricane season is here, and quite probably more of these potent weather phenomena will hit in the next month. Beryle’ arrival prompted me to order a hurricane when I was at the Music Box in Cleveland the other night. Just one of them made me feel a little rocked—because it has four ounces of rum in it.
Showing remarkable timing, the folks at Crossfire Hurricane have a promotional gift set: the Crossfire Caribbean Rum Stones Tour ‘24 gift set. Buy the box and you get bottles of Crossfire’s light and dark rums, and the chance to win tickets to one of the concerts.
Those of you who would prefer a tropical cocktail less boozy than the Hurricane should consider Dark and Stormy. Crossfire’s has its own version of this cocktail, which uses its blond rum. It’s good!
GOLD AND STORMY:
Ingredients:
1.5 oz Crossfire Hurricane Rum
.25 oz Lime Juice
Top with Fever Tree Ginger Beer
2 dashes of Angostura Bitters (float)
Garnish: Black Cherry and Lime Wheel on a Cocktail Pick
Glass: Collins
Ice: Cubed Ice
Method: Pour 1.5oz Crossfire Hurricane Rum into an ice-filled Collins glass. Add lime juice and ginger beer and stir to combine. Dash with Angostura Bitters and garnish with a black cherry and lime wheel on a cocktail pick and enjoy!
Pair this book with your drink
Camino Island—the balmy, beach community where Bruce Cable runs the Bay Books shop, and entertains the motley crew of writers who reside on the island. The summer book season is rudely interrupted by a hurricane, and shortly afterward one of Bruce’s writer friends is found dead. Did a blowing tree branch kill him? Or was he bludgeoned to death by a fellow writer or a mysterious, recently arrived woman? And might somebody else be next? This novel is escapist fun, and if you enjoy it as much as I did you will be pleased to learn it is the second in the Camino Island trilogy—and, no, you do not need to read the first one to enjoy Camino Winds (Anchor Books, 2020).
Another summer beach read
I happened across a copy of Peter Swanson’s Every Vow You Break (William Morrow, 2020) at the library in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. I am glad I did. If you like suspense and want to feel a chill, read this novel. Abigail Baskin, a young woman in New York who has had enough of the dating game, falls for a modern day prince. She’s an artist by nature; Bruce is a tech mogul who is sweet, sensible, and just a little nerdy. The perfect yin-and-yang couple! While on her bachelorette party in San Francisco, Abigail has a drunken fling with a brooding out-of-work actor—who then shows up New York, then at her Hudson River Valley wedding, and her honeymoon on a remote island off the coast of Maine. And then… well, you’ll have to read it yourself to learn how it all plays out.
ICMYI
Wine and human remains, anyone? The Smithsonian reports:
“When archaeologists excavated an ancient Roman tomb in Spain, they found a funerary urn with a strange mixture inside: In addition to cremated bones, it was filled with a reddish-brown liquid. After conducting laboratory analyses, the researchers concluded that the fluid was once a white wine—though it had been browned beyond recognition in the 2,000 years since its creation. It’s the oldest liquid wine ever found…. Daniel Cosano [an]organic chemist … did opt to sample the ancient wine. ‘The flavor is salty, which is not surprising given its chemical composition’…”
FYI
Tickets for the Great American Beer Festival go on sale on July 17. Learn more.