Liquid Courage

Drink: The Hard Hand of War

Ratings:
Strength: 4/5 (fighter jet)
Skill: 3/5 (grenadier)
Rank: 4/5 (knight of the realm)

[Ingredients:]

• bourbon
• mint
• cane sugar
• honey
• crushed ice
• everclear
• matches

[Preparation:]

1. Prepare that elegant symbol of Southern culture, the mint julep. Crush 1-2 sprigs of mint in a bowl, add a touch of honey, then add a tumbler’s worth of bourbon. Gently mix. Refrigerate mixture for several hours.
2. Fill tumbler (preferably silver) 3/4 full with crushed ice. Pour refrigerated mixture over ice. Add a tablespoon of cane sugar and, if desired, a dash of water. Shake and pour. Garnish with a lightly sugar-coated sprig of mint. Fine indeed!
3. Carefully and deliberately light a shot of everclear on fire.
4. Drop flaming everclear into mint julep.
5. Drink without remorse.

Background

“We are not only fighting armies, but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war…” – General William Tecumseh Sherman

In July 1861, women in fancy dress had picnic’d on a hill to watch the First Battle of Bull Run.  Three years later, hundreds of thousands of American men lay in shallow graves in the fields of Antietam, Bull Run, and Gettysburg.  The areas of the country which had experienced fighting knew the war’s costs.  In the fall of 1864, Union General Sherman resolved to bring those lessons to the civilians of the Confederacy.

I do say, Jeremiah, I believe I hear the sound of cannon. I hope the battle won't conclude whilst we finish our daguerreotype!

Sherman rested his troops in Atlanta for ten weeks after capturing that city on September 2nd, 1864.  With the nervous support of a newly reelected President Lincoln, Sherman undertook a campaign to break the Confederacy’s military capabilities and war-faring spirit.  Lincoln suggested a forceful letter-writing campaign followed by an eloquent speaking tour, but Sherman politely disagreed.  Leaving Atlanta on November 15th with 68,000 troops, Sherman began a scorched-earth march for Savannah, Georgia.

Lincoln, sitting for a daguerreotype, ecstatic about the telegram's news of a hat's imminent arrival.

Like coal miners at a fancy dress party, Sherman’s “March to the Sea” introduced to the Southeastern populace a shocking and devastating new standard of wartime behavior.  The Union forces carried minimum rations, organizing raiding parties as they marched to forcibly take the supplies they required.  Whatever food and livestock they did not use, they burned.  The army destroyed anything resembling industrial or agricultural infrastructure, including twisting melted railroad rails around tree trunks in what became known as “Sherman’s Neckties.”  Surprisingly, though, this invocation of total war resulted in few civilian deaths.  Meeting little military resistance, Sherman telegramed Lincoln on December 22nd, 1864: “I beg to present you as a Christmas gift, the City of Savannah, with 150 heavy guns, and plenty of ammunition, and about 25,000 bales of cotton.  Also, I got you another tall black hat for the one you lost.”

Sherman’s swathe of destruction between Atlanta and Savannah dispelled any romantic notions the Southerners held about the war they were fighting.  The “March to the Sea” destroyed much of the Confederacy’s ability to wage war as well as its popular willingness to do so.  The South was a man whose delectable mint julep had a flaming shot of everclear dropped into it; horrified at the crudeness of the gesture and soon to be suffering its burning effects.  To this day, Sherman and his “March” remains a detested memory in many areas of the American Southeast.

Drink: The Gordian Shot

Ratings:
Strength: 2/5 (musket)
Skill: 2/5 (national guard)
Rank: 3/5 (centurion)

[Ingredients:]

• Monster Energy Drink (or other citrus-flavored energy drink)
• red wine
• lime

[Preparation:]

1. Mix equal parts red wine and energy drink.
2. Distribute into shot glasses, because life is too short to sip.
3. Chase with lime wedge.

Background

Throughout time, innumerable men and women have given themselves the title, “The Great.”  It is only the rarefied few who keep that title more than 2,300 years after their death.  History has concluded that Alexander of Macedon, son of King Philip II, student of Aristotle, was no mere Alex.  By the time he was thirty, Alexander had conquered the world from Greece to India, founded a dozen cities, cut the Gordian Knot, and generally became notable enough to warrant mention in both the Bible and the Persian Book of Kings, Shāhnāmé (the National Epic of Iran).  Alexander the Great indeed.

Artists agree that Alexander had fabulous hair

Befitting such a figure, Alexander the Great’s life has become a mixture of fact and legend.  The accounts of several ancient historians can be pieced together to provide a rough timeline of his life (a timeline since embellished by contemporary biographers like Richard Burton and Oliver Stone).  He was born in Macedon in 356 BC to Philip II and Olympias, a Greek Princess.  When Alexander was twenty years old, his father was murdered in public at his sister Cleopatra’s wedding.  Historians disagree on the extent of Alexander or Olympias’s involvement with the murder, but generally favor Alexander’s innocence.  With the support of the army, Alexander took over leadership of Macedon.

What followed was ten years of uninterrupted military victory and myth-making.  Alexander led his armies to a series of stunning victories against the powerful Persian Empire.  He traveled south to Egypt to investigate his possible divinity (results inconclusive).  In the Phrygian capital of Gordium, the city leaders presented him with the famous Gordian Knot.  The man who untied the knot, so a legend told, was destined to be the ruler of all Asia.  Stories differ on how Alexander responded to the challenge.  In the most famous version, in a show of bravado and pragmatism befitting a twenty-something world conqueror, Alexander simply cut the knot with his sword.

It's all about the Alexanders, baby

Alexander toppled the Persian empire in a second campaign and defeated an army equipped with terrifying elephants in India.  The great Persian treasury he captured as part of his Persian campaign contained so much gold that it may have made Alexander the richest man ever (adjusting for inflation).  He marched his armies to Babylon, but there he died under yet more mysterious circumstances.  What is known is that on May 29, 323 BC, an ill Alexander retired to bed after a several-day bender involving many men and women of ill repute.  He stayed in bed for eleven days before dying.  Theories abound as to the cause of death: malaria, typhoid, viral encephalitis. What is likely, however, is that the great Alexander simply partied too hard.