As our readers know, this blog was born when we began playing Breath of the Wild in the early days of the pandemic and decided to pair adult beverages with certain types of play, i.e., Legend of Zelda cocktails. Now we’re occasionally asked – particularly by Demelza’s spouse, who wonders how long that bottle of Velvet Falernum will take up space in the wine cabinet – how we derive the cocktail pairing for a particular post.
Some choices are easy to understand: the Flaming Eldin Volcano, for example, was perfect on the day we tackled the fires and lava of Skyward Sword’s Eldin province. An Electric Lemonade paired beautifully with sizzling Faron Tower and collecting rubber armor in BOTW. Obviously, quaffing a Scorpion was essential to traversing the Lanayru Mining Facility.
If the gameplay’s location is expected to be dry and sunny (e.g., the Gerudo Desert), we might opt for a “refreshing” drink like sangria, as if we, too, like Link, were trudging about in the sand and unrelenting sun with parched lips. Similarly, the wet and gloom of BOTW’s Lanayru, before Vah Ruta was freed, begged for Blue Lagoons. Occasionally, the real world intrudes, however, so the fact that Link is wearing his snow boots in the Hebra Mountains may have no bearing on our choice of drink if we’re playing in August. No one craves a Hot Buttered Rum when it’s 100 degrees and humid outside in real life.
When we rousted the Sheep Rustlers at Hateno Beach, we honored Itzal’s Basque sheepherding ancestry with a Picon Punch. Mai Tais went down easily when we vacationed in Lurelin Village. Recently, we were particularly proud of the Diki Diki, which required both identifying a gameplay hook (the shuttling between past and present in SSHD) and finding a cocktail with both a traditional and an updated version.
Other pairings are not so easy to explain, or to come by, for that matter. Sometimes we resort to connecting glassware to the task at hand (see: the Akkala Ancient Tech lab and Lost Bank martini during BOTW) or grasping desperately at a word that marks some aspect of both the game’s play and its accompanying drink (Late Night Gossip in SSHD).[1]
Although we did our original mixing and matching by the seat of our pants, now we read ahead to see if something comes to mind that suits an upcoming day’s play. True, Demelza reads ahead no matter what, it’s what she does, but Itzal now does so also, albeit for different reasons – he’s looking for a cocktail connection, not clues to defeating the dungeon boss. That’s how we came up with the SandSea Breeze and the Paloma Claw(shots).
On rare occasion, we finish a day’s play and think of a drink after we’re done; we take poetic license in writing our posts as if such had not occurred. In addition, we maintain our separate lists of drinks we’d like to pair to some later day’s play. We’ll leave those lists unrevealed, so as not to bury a future lede.
And then there’s the What’s Left in the Cabinet pairings.
On one recent occasion, we had finished the drink of the day, and there were no more ingredients to make that drink again. But, there were some leftover ingredients and some others we rustled up from the fridge and the liquor cabinet. We crafted – we perhaps use that term loosely, as applied to cocktails? – a drink that may appear in an upcoming post.
Now, as it happens, Itzal is currently in the process of downsizing his liquor cabinet. We won’t go into the reasons here. But it resulted in the following text exchange:
Itzal: Do we have any doctors coming up in Skyward Sword?
Demelza (dutifully consults guidebook, although she wonders at the question): No. In fact, I can’t remember the last time we had anything close to a doctor, unless it was that time that Link had to escort an ailing princeling to a medicine man –
Itzal: You’re making that up.
Demelza (indignantly): It was a different game, a few years ago. And maybe the details are a little hazy but I have the gist. Everyone knows it’s the gist that matters!
Itzal: Oh, that’s on bumper stickers everywhere.
Demelza: Why do we need a doctor anyhow, when we don’t have even a medicine man?
Itzal: I found a drink called The Doctor that calls for the Swedish Punsch we used in the Diki Diki. There’s a lot of punsch left. What am I supposed to do with the rest of the bottle?
Demelza: It’s not like Swedish Punsch is an everyday base like vodka, rum, or gin. Besides, we can’t choose drinks based on what odd ingredient is left in your liquor cabinet. If it comes to that, what about all the Cherry Heering and Velvet Falernum in mine?
Itzal (ponders): Let’s not forget the Cachaça we have left from the Caipirinha. Hey, how about a Cherry Heering, Swedish Punsch, and Cachaça cocktail?
Demelza: Gah. Um, no. Just no. You’re supposed to be the master craftsman! What happened to your lectures on the chemistry of bitters, sweet, and sour? Ice and dilution? Shaken versus stirred? Precise measurements? How did you become the same man who topped off the mystery cocktail last week by emptying the last of the simple syrup in the shaker, just so the bottle would be done?
Itzal: I’ve got a lot of Swedish Punsch left. Just sayin’.
Demelza: Stop saying.
And that brings us to a topic that troubles us of late. As noted in a recent post, we are racing through Skyward Sword. (Okay, cease your snickering now. We know we’re well behind 20-somethings everywhere, if they even play SSHD. But for us, we’re hurtling. Itzal wants to be done with SSHD. He finds it too much dungeon and too little fun and exploration. Demelza prefers to give Nintendo’s game designers the benefit of the doubt, believing that all in SSHD will be explained and appreciated as clever, necessary background for BOTW2.)
Our racing means there’s a limited number of cocktails we can yet pair with SSHD play. That is, the play is limited, which perforce limits the cocktails. And who knows – insert plaintive wail –when BOTW2 will come out.
Accordingly, how are we to continue our study of Zelda-themed Mixology and Matchology, if our escapades in Hyrule are shortly to go on hiatus? Will we be like Itzal, adding a splash of Cherry Heering to the dregs of a bottle of Cachaça? Then pairing Zombies with Metroid Dread and Mint Julips with Animal Crossing?
We’ll dust off Ocarina of Time before we sink to those levels. Won’t we, Itzal? Won’t we?
(Itzal pours a shot of Swedish Punsch, adds a dash of lime bitters, and stirs with his finger.)
[1] Many of our chosen beverages are in the public realm or, better said, the public house. But when we choose a drink that is seriously distinct, unique, or otherwise should be credited to a creator, a bar, or a book, we try always to do so. At the same time, we’ve often found ourselves in the position of thinking we’ve originated a drink, only to discover that someone else, maybe even several someone elses, did so before us – but that doesn’t negate our feeling of creation, and so we name away, like Adam in the Garden. Perhaps, after all, what has been done before will be done again, there is nothing new under the sun, and we should be forgiven our cocktail trespasses.