LCPP – Part IV

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!

- Lewis Carroll

The Cheshire Cat is one of the more ambiguous characters in Alice in Wonderland, like a calm (or infuriating) referee, pointing out the obvious in a zen-like pseudo-wise manner. Such as when Alice requests help to find her way:

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where –" said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"– so long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."

Yoh Kakuda, one of my favorite Karakuri Creation Group artists, was a natural pick to be included in the Lewis Carroll Puzzle Project. His work is instantly recognizable and almost always takes the form of an animal. Occasionally there is also a human present, but people in Kakuda’s work are ambiguous, androgenous, and meant to evoke emotion. All of Kakuda’s work tells a story, and it is so fitting that a story is the starting place for this piece as well.

Initially Kakuda was approached to make the White Rabbit, and of course would have done a wonderful job with that character. He has made rabbits before, after all. But he couldn’t come up with anything that was satisfying, and had another idea. He proposed the Cheshire Cat. Although he was not previously familiar with the books (how many Japanese children’s stories do you know?), in his research he came across a passage that placed an idea in his head for the mechanism:

“Alice: ‘I wish you wouldn’t keep appearing and vanishing so suddenly: you make one quite giddy.’

‘All right,’ said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.”

Kakuda’s Cheshire Cat is perfectly rendered in contrasting white and red woods, and has brass eyes that shine with a penetrating intensity. It is the smallest of all the boxes in the series but may just have the largest personality. I’m simply “mad” about it.

A Cheshire Cat cocktail, from my perspective, would ideally be “invisible”, or mostly so. The problem is that Caperitif, the South African vermouth which helps define this classic cocktail, has an amber hue. Caperitif was quite popular in the 1930s when the cocktail was originally introduced, but fell out of favor and became defunct until very recently. Modern bartenders created various work arounds and substitutes for the missing spirit. The two other ingredients, gin and dry sherry, are either clear or very pale yellow, so work well in building in invisible drink.

Bartender Dan Godinez has a nice Jabberwock variation in which he completes the third ingredient with three separate pieces – a bit of dry Dolin Blanc vermouth, a bit of the delicately bitter aperitif Lillet, and a bit of the sweetly floral St. Germaine, an elderflower liqueur.  The result is a truly lovely martini, a Jabberwock full of mystery and grace. I incorporated a touch more bitter irony into the Cheshire Cat version, using Luxardo’s Bitter Bianco amaro, a classically bitter red amaro that has been turned crystal clear during the distillation process. It’s entirely confusing, which couldn’t be more appropriate here. Cheers!

Cheshire Cat

1 oz gin

1 oz Manzanilla sherry infused with chamomile

1/3 oz Luxardo bitter Bianco

1/3 oz Lillet

1/3 oz elderflower liqueur

2 d lemon bitters

Stir with ice and strain into a favorite glass. Garnish with a lemon peel grin.

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