Dryads: Spirits of the Trees
I am very, very pleased to announce that I will be writing a *fourth* book for Abbeville Press, which is provisionally titled, “Dryads: Spirits of the Trees.”
The subject is spirits distilled from the sap or nectar of trees, which are found all over the world but remain curiously absent from the international spirits conversation. I will be profiling producers of every single type that I have been able to find – from Sweden to Sri Lanka, from Bali to Benin, and from Manila to Montreal – telling the stories of their categories, and offering cocktail recipe suggestions. My hope is to raise the profile of these products, which in some cases have been made for centuries; and to build a kind of category consciousness among their producers. Eagle-eyed observers will note that this was also the subject of the seminar I moderated at Tales of the Cocktail last summer, and the goals are very much the same. (That seminar is recorded here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CcQsFgi3-8.)
(This is only a rough draft of the cover design, but I like it!)
“Dryad” is the general category term I'm pushing to describe these spirits. The word comes from Greek mythology, in which “dryads” were, literally, spirits of trees, and it was independently suggested to me by two people, both of them poets.
Although most of these spirits have their own names already – arrack, lambanog, etc. – we're hoping to establish “dryads” as an umbrella descriptor, in the same way that the word “brandy” (on its own or modified) is understood to cover all kinds of fruit distillates, from Cognac to grappa to slivovitz. So e.g., "dryads" would be the label for the section of the liquor store or spirits menu where you'd find the arrack and the ogogoro; and if somebody in Indiana started distilling black walnut syrup, one might call it a “black walnut dryad” in the absence of any other word for it.
This book will be unlike anything I've ever written, and the subject matter has, to my knowledge, never been covered in this way or anything close to it before. I am very excited, and very grateful to Abbeville for the chance to tell some stories that are too seldom heard.
The blog may be a little less active for a bit, not only because I’m working on this book, but also because I’ll be doing a lot of traveling for it. Last month I took a road trip through Quebec (with my dad!) to visit producers of acerum, the local maple distillate, and came home with a massive haul of the stuff to experiment with. Next week, I embark on a round-the-world trip that will bring me also to the dryad-producing countries of the Philippines, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka, as well as the dryad-consuming cities of Singapore, Rome, and London (and also Istanbul, but that’s mainly because it was the easiest way to get from Sri Lanka to Italy – they don’t drink a lot of dryads there).
As always, thank you all for your support. I will see you on the other side!