Bijou

what:
in a large bar glass with ice add:
1 oz. Gin
1 oz. Green Chartreuse
1 oz. Italian Vermouth
1 dash Orange Bitters
stir, strain into cocktail glass
garnish with an olive

where:
Planters Tavern
23 Abercorn Street
Savannah, GA

when:
derby season

character:

The Bijou cocktail is a full-length, full-sleeved, high-collared black dress worn on a warm sunny afternoon. Perhaps with an emerald broach. And an elaborate silver dragonfly hair pin. Which is to say that it is both curious enough to beg a question (why?), and yet eccentric enough to ensure that question will rarely be asked. For the peculiarity of its contents suggests a secret meaning (no one casually wears such a combination), and is highly suggestive of that secret’s origins being a shade or two on the side of dark. And so one simply tries not to stare, and wonders: I wonder who…I wonder why…I wonder what is the story behind that.

tastes like:

The family secret.

pairs nicely with:

Southern Gothic literature, Romanesque architecture, Greek Revival ironwork, and sentences that begin with, “Now you didn’t hear this from me, but…,”; Monteray Square, Whitefield Square, and Reynolds Square (after dusk); “I Put a Spell On You” by Nina Simone, Sargent’s Lady with the Rose, and anyone who can recite from memory more than three lines of Macbeth; walking alone after midnight in an old Southern city; Forseythe Park, Laurel Grove, Bonaventure Cemetery, the story behind the relative you only confess to having after you’ve had too much Gin and Chartreuse, and “At Last the Secret Is Out” by W.H. Auden.