mixed with high-end Calif. vermouth, emphasis on the botanicals; with a few dots of small-batch peach bitters (produced by the same company since Pres. Garfield [not the cat]). I.e., the standard Manhattan recipe, with some re-flavorings. Always, whatever ingredients: one of the tastiest comforts on the cocktail menu. Candidate Trump, you with me, amigo?
Which leads me outside to prune in the dark.
It's the only time you can really see what the garden lights actually authentically illuminate, nook and cranny, this spur and that pitfall. Our friends are aging. Less steady on their feet. Trying to be visitor friendly. So I'll adjust the lights; better angles: fewer pratfalls and claims against our insurance. I always have to prune thyme out of the way, too. Dense plants block the sweeping blue-white lights.
We can't get other Mediterranean plants (rosemary, lavender) to thrive in our RI country microclimate (on a well-shaded hill, with volcanic deposits). But the thyme? The thyme worries me. The thyme could be a bad date. A marriage festering. The thyme has no known limits. We have evergreens in abundance. Thyme grows in their needle carpets. We have oak and acid soil in abundance. Thyme, which should LOVE alkaline, hoots in derision and rudely, promptly invades, like a developer sensing a ripe opportunity in a boom real estate market.
I walk on it as often as I can. I repeat army maneuvers on it. Famous battles. Our yard smells like sachet. Thyme might be the hardiest plant I've ever encountered at my feet; our weeds bow abjectly before our thyme. Thyme could probably defeat the Allegheny Mound Ants in a territorial dispute, if they cared about each other. And the ants number in the billions on our property; we are marooned; some nights Simone cries out in her sleep, "Save us!".
Night pruning reminds me of Day of the Triffids.