Nightmare nae mair

THE passage of the earth round the sun can, for many, seem depressingly routine. Another day, another dull ache where excitement once dwelled.

Photographers, in pre-digital days where light meant everything, had to use one for the other, as in the technique known as ‘day for night’, wherein shooting is done in daylight using blue filters and under-exposed later by a few ‘stops’.

French nouvelle vague auteur Francois Truffaut even named one of his revered movies Day For Night, a movie about a movie, after the method film makers used to trick audiences.

Getting through a dull day is, indeed, a trick. One bit merges into another and before you know it, it’s tomorrow. Which, as Bond lovers will know, never dies.

To compensate for this confusion – and occasionally to add to it – there are those who, where others might sip a glass of fresh orange juice of a morning, turn instead to a Tequila Sunrise. And not necessarily in Mexico either.

I invited three chums round to indulge me in the version pictured above. 

Tequila Sunrise

Ingredients (serves four)

4 oz decent tequila

Fresh orange juice

Orange bitters

Grenadine syrup

Method

Fill four highball glasses with ice cubes (chill them in the fridge for an hour or so beforehand)

Place six ice cubes in a cocktail shaker

Add the tequila and a good dash of bitters

Shake vigorously

Pour into the glasses

Add orange juice to about an inch from the top and stir

Gently pour a dollop of Grenadine down the edge of each glass; it will sink to the bottom then gradually rise, giving the appearance of a sunrise

Place two straws in each glass and garnish with a wedge of fresh orange between two maraschino cherries on a cocktail stick.

What a morning! Creative types, they strode off afterwards and …

• a/ invented software for transferring people to another destination without the requirement of the internal combustion engine. “Beam me up, Scotty!”
• b/ drew up a peace document sine qua non for Israel and Palestine
• c/ came up with an idea of getting gin from the offie if it’s raining: sending his little brother.

Me, I just mulled over the rest of what some imagined was another day. Fortified – yes, I was – it came to me that such a day as this should never end. After much mulling and creating on the part of my chums we all repaired later to my flat to turn day into night – but without the perception of it, the requirement being … why, a Tequila Sunset. Chums satisfied that their host could invent an item equal to anything they could come up with, I smiled – it was a rather skewed smile, I admit – and got on with it.

Tequila Sunset

Recipe and method similar to the aforementioned Sunrise but instead of fresh orange juice, I used a pink cranberry and raspberry concoction.

The latter on its own is, I’m sure, terribly healthy, but would never transport the inquisitive mind to think up E=MC2 or whatever, but added to these other ingredients and enjoyed in the company of philosophers – some call them bevvy merchants – well, there’s no comparison.
There's even a song for it...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEM_63_P0CY