the home stretch

Well, I have good news and bad news. With one night and one day to go, I have finished my NaNoWriMo story. The bad news is that, due to my complete lack of planning (I always was a pantser), I've come up 2,500 words short.

Shazbot.

The Taedong River, which runs through Pyongyang, in the 19th century. This is where the real story, the one involving the General Sherman, went down in 1866.

Now I gotta comb back through the book and find places where I can pad it out. That's no problem. I was a bit scanty in my description of Ganghwa Island and Chongjijin Fortress (my story takes place on the Han River, which runs through Seoul). So I'll lengthen the story about the crew's expedition on the island. Maybe I'll introduce a new character...some British or American castaway who washed up on Korea's beaches in the early 1860s but can't leave because of the Joseon Kingdom's strict isolationist policies. Yeah, perfect drama bomb.

Wish me luck...

cocktail review no. 66 - Caipirinha

I never thought I'd get the chance to try this one! The ingredients are kinda out there, so this one requires a didactic preamble. Bear with me.

The caipirinha comes to us from Brazil. It was virtually unknown outside that country a few years ago, but it's gaining popularity around the globe. The word caipirinha is a derivative of the word caipira, which is roughly analogous to the English word "hillbilly."

The primary component of the cocktail is cachaça, which is a type of Brazilian rum. The main difference between cachaça and traditional rums is that it's distilled from sugar cane juice (as opposed to molasses) and then aged in oak barrels. The reason the caipirinha cocktail has been gaining ground outside Brazil lately is the increased availability of quality cachaça.

Case in point, Gecko's Restaurant & Bar in Itaewon, in the Yongsan borough of Seoul, South Korea. I was sitting at the bar last night for a coworker's birthday party and I happened to notice a poster on a nearby pillar, advertising the caipirinha. Remembering the odd name and the eldritch ingredients from The Bartender's Bible, and realizing that this was a golden opportunity (the ₩8,000 price tag notwithstanding), I ordered one.

Enough background for ya? Okay, here's the recipe:

• 1 lime, quartered
• 2 teaspoons fine sugar
• 2 ounces cachaça

Place the lime wedges and sugar into an old-fashioned glass. Muddle well. Fill the glass with ice cubes. Pour in the cachaça and stir well.

This is exactly how I observed the bartender doing it last night at Gecko's. Lime wedges and chunky sugar, muddled well, and then the cachaça poured in over the top. It was delicious, sweeter than I'd expected. I didn't realize sugar was such a large or vital component to the drink, and I didn't recall the ingredient list before I got home and checked online. Nevertheless, the taste was as limey as I had anticipated, and that was a welcome complement to the sugar. The cachaça was milder and more mellow than a lot of light rums I've tasted, and was only just discernible underneath the sugar and lime; whether this was the fault of the bartender's light hand or the cachaça's inherent properties was a mystery to me. Nevertheless I heartily enjoyed the drink and found it soothing, pleasant, summery and delicious.

Yes, it's a drink for a hot day and not a winter's night, but in that warm, smoky gallery at Gecko's in Itaewon, it was just what the doctor ordered. Try it and see for yourself.