By Sam Harriss / Correspondent
January 1, 2021
A great man once wrote:
And Dolphins in Nature are mad, mad mad
And Dolphins in Nature are mad, mad mad
They’re mad
They’re mad
They’re mad.
mad.
mad.
How mad they must be
How mad they must be
That great man is Shea Foreman, owner and proprietor of the Sea Kove Motel, and the poem is “Cockaigne.” It’s this intoxicating, mind-bending thriller that makes me want to pour a nip o’ whiskey and sit around a fire with intellectuals and get to the bottom of what mysteries it holds. It’s one of those inner voices, like a heart beating under the floorboards that keeps you up at night seeking answers. You see the rabbit hole, and yet you doggedly search.
Part of me pictures a beautiful pod of dolphins, their little rice teeth and long smiles foaming at the lips or laughing their Flipper-esque laugh with shrill lunacy. But that can’t be it. Maybe they’re brilliantly mad, rising above the simple mortal concepts of other sea and land beasts. Possibly. Or perhaps dolphins hold the secret key to extraterrestrial lifeforms and the Voyager space probe is aimlessly floating farther and farther from the ones to whom it hopes to give its gift, the Golden Record. Hmmm. Or maybe we’re the mad ones, stuck in a three-dimensional world with only a slim understanding of the myth of space and time.
Too many hours dwelling alone on this matter is sure to cause an affliction of madness. I have found the only cure is a long-distance drive or cocktail of sorts — neither to be done in the same space and time.
The Mad Dolphin
Ingredients
2 ounces bourbon
½ ounce pineapple juice
¾ ounce fresh lemon juice
½ ounce John D Taylor’s Falernum liqueur
½ ounce simple syrup
Dash of Crude “Sycophant” bitters
Preparation
Add all to shaker with ice. Shake and strain over crushed ice. Grate fresh cinnamon on top and obviously garnish with a banana dolphin.
Sam Harriss is the owner/founder of Camp Cocktail, a mobile bartending business on the Outer Banks. When she’s not slinging drinks from the window of her remodeled 1969 Shasta camper trailer, you might find her nose-deep in a good book, a sleeping dog by her side.