The First Kiss, in Memory
/By Daren Wang
JACKSON, Mississippi — The Mississippi Book Festival is held in the State Capitol building. It’s a gorgeous old structure, with lots of marble, granite, and, as you’d expect, many statues of Confederate leaders. It is an intimidating place to do your first panel as an author, but oddly appropriate to do an event about a book focused on a Yankee secessionist hamlet.
One of many theories around the sharp bitterness of today’s American politics is rooted in the idea that politicians don’t drink together anymore, that cross-aisle solutions often had their origins in the post-legislative-day cocktail at the nearby bar.
If that’s the case, then any dysfunction in Mississippi’s state legislature can be pinned to the lack of good cocktails within walking distance of the majestic old building. The city is trying to reinvent itself with a proliferation of museums and other tourist efforts, but the street level businesses have not followed yet, and the only commerce I saw outside the festival grounds was not legal in most states. The concierge at the hotel warns against a two-block walk.
When Taylor Brown and I asked Johnny Evans, the proprietor of Jackson’s legendary Lemuria Books, for a suggestion, he sent us to the blues club, Underground 119. The place is more of a blues club than a cocktail lounge, and the $10 cover served as a warning. The chalkboard listed Miss Welty’s Sweet Tea as their signature bourbon cocktail. It was an overly sweet mess, a Long Island Iced Tea that its namesake, Eudora, would not have approved of. I challenged the bartender for the best bourbon cocktail they could offer, and was treated to a passable Old-Fashioned.
The band was all right. Taylor and I beat a retreat. There would be nothing interesting tonight.
The Wrap party for the festival was held the next night at Duling Hall, a 10-minute Uber trip from downtown. The Saltine Oyster Bar next door looked like the kind of place to find a very fine cocktail, but the party was hosted by Thacker Mountain, Radio and they’d brought along Jessica B. Harris to read from her spectacular new memoir, “My Soul Looks Black,” and a great set from Devon Gilfillian and the Artisanals, it was hard to convince anyone to leave.
So, I asked the bartender at Duling Hall to make his best bourbon cocktail. He thought for a moment, and then whipped up a pair of Kentucky Mules with some Barritt Ginger Beer and Bulleit Bourbon for me and my drinking partner for the evening, Mississippi Poet Laureate Beth Ann Fennelly.
Richard Howorth and Beth Ann Fennelly
When I first thought about this project, I imagined wood-paneled bars and quiet reflection on the nuances of the cocktail. Instead, there was a raucous band in a converted elementary school and cocktails in plastic cups.
But the cocktail was a perfect thing. The sweet sharpness of the ginger beer was the needed tonic for a hot Mississippi evening, and the fresh lime brought just the right brightness.
Beth Ann was in town to talk about her latest book, “Heating and Cooling.” It is a collection of 52 “micro-memoirs,” moments that she has polished into perfection using the poet’s eye and economy.
In the spirit of her book, I asked her what bourbon reminded her of.
“My first kiss,” she said. “My first boyfriend and I were in a pool, and we kissed and I could taste the bourbon around and on his lips. I was 15 years old in Chicago. Now, I’ve got a 16-year-old daughter. I hope she doesn’t read this.”
“I hate to break it to you,” I said. “But she’s probably already had her first kiss.”
She smiled and laughed, but I could see some sadness in her eyes.