Covers & Cocktails: The City We Became by NK Jemisin

We have a Covers & Cocktails guest post this week from Adam, who loves NK Jemisin books and also loves bourbon.

The City We Became was recently on sale, and I immediately sent the link to Adam because I didn’t think he’d read it.

I was right: “How did I not know about this? I’m buying it immediately.”

Adam: “It is definitionally the true urban fantasy in the sense that it is fantasy about cities coming to life – in this case, New York. The city itself and all five boroughs have individual human avatars and they have to find each other in order to repel a not-quite-understood enemy. It took me a couple chapters to get into it and figure out what was going on, but once I did, I loved it. Particularly if you’ve lived in or near or had any connection to New York, it’s a fantastic celebration of the diversity and history of the city.”

Since Adam likes bourbon, and since we’ve become quite proficient at cocktail mixing as the quarantimes marathon continues,  we’re making an Apple Cider Manhattan! 

We started with this recipe by Nick Leghorn at ThirtyOneWhiskey, but made some key modifications, as Adam explains below:

The book is about NYC, and each Borough has an avatar. NYC is the big apple. So we are starting with an Apple Cider Manhattan.

To add Brooklyn, we note that the cocktail called a “Brooklyn” is basically a Manhattan with cherry liqueur. So we add the alcoholic cherry to represent Brooklyn.

There is a neighborhood in Queens called Jamaica. Allspice comes from (the other) Jamaica. So I’m adding a dash of allspice instead of the cinnamon to represent Queens.

A “Bronx” cocktail is like a martini with orange juice in it. OJ would be gross here, so instead I’m using orange bitters to represent the Bronx.

The “Staten Island Ferry” cocktail is pineapple juice and rum, again not compatible with what we’re making here, but pineapple has “apple” in the name. Also in the book, the Staten Island avatar’s father calls her “Apple,” so we’re just going back to the apple cider and saying that represents SI.

Let’s do this!

Ingredients:

• 2 oz rye
• 1 oz vermouth
• 2 oz apple cider
• 2 Alcoholic Wonder Cherries (recipe below)
• A few dashes of Orange Bitters
• A dash of allspice (we used too much – it came out of the jar really fast!)

 

Instructions:

1. Add the rye, vermouth, apple cider, bitters, and allspice to a cocktail shaker filled with ice.
2. Shake really well, dancing optional, and strain into a cocktail glass (chilling it is a good idea but sometimes we forget to shove it in the freezer in advance)
3. Garnish with two cherries and another dash of allspice (again, careful, as it may pour out of the canister really quickly – it didn’t harm the flavor, just made it a bit dusty)
4. Serve chilled and enjoy greatly!

A Note About Alcoholic Wonder Cherries: 

As I mentioned, we’ve become very proficient at mixing drinks, and we recently made a batch of homemade Luxardo cherries using this recipe. I call them our Alcoholic Wonder Cherries. We even bought a vicious looking cherry pitting guillotine to make the recipe – second only to the pasta maker as our “most fun quarantimes food making purchase.”

Holy crows, they are so good – they taste of fall and perfection, and balance sweetness and spice with so many flavors start to finish. I could eat them out of the jar, though I wouldn’t advise that.

So if you have, or you can make some (and frozen cherries, per the recipe, work as a substitute!) definitely add two to the drink. (I also drizzle the liquid into G&Ts, Light & Stormy cocktails, and other concoctions.)

Cheers, and happy reading!