Elsie bellisima and the vecchio cane
Hello everyone! I know it’s been a long while since I last wrote. Life carried me away on a series of trips and travels and things that needed my attention. I‘m back now and diving back into things around the farm.
In my most recent post, I shared a cocktail recipe based on my old dog, Eddie, that most charming of gentlemen.
Photo courtesy of my mom.
I promised to share the other three in the fullness of time, and this is the second installment.
I want to note right up front that all three of the graphic images in this post were designed and created by my genius sister, Melissa Rotert. She doesn’t have a website, but I keep telling her she should. When she makes one, I’ll put the link here. She does have an Etsy shop, a Ravelry page, and her own Spoonflower shop. If you don’t know what all of those things are, it’s OK, they’re probably not for you. If you do know, then you should go see all of those things right now. And you can find her under the name lothruin.
The Dog
Many of you have heard stories about that charming gentleman. His sister, Elsie, joined the family a few years after I got Eddie. She was about one year old when I brought her home in 2008.
Elsie has achieved the ripe old age of 16 in a state of wonderful health, for which we are very grateful. She’s having a difficult week this week, however. She slipped a disc in her lower back and is on kennel rest for at least the next four weeks. Good thing we just moved to a three-story house with very old very steep stairs…
Not our actual stairs.
In addition to her many other fine qualities, Elsie is unfailingly loyal, especially to her mom. In just one of many examples, a few years ago I got a concussion after slipping and falling out ice-skating with the boys. After I got home from the emergency room, I suggested that Diem and the boys take all of the dogs out to the dog park. About 15 minutes later, I heard the entire troop coming back in the house. I asked Diem why they were back so soon, and he explained that the moment Elsie had a chance, she pulled her leash out of the boys’ hands and ran all the way home, a distance of about a mile. This was only a couple of years ago, and her eyesight was already questionable by that time. She had to cross at least a couple of roads with a modest amount of traffic, which was scary for everyone, but she made it home and spent the rest of the afternoon lying in bed with her mom, while all of the boys went to the park without us. She just wants to be next to her mom; what can I say? She’s the loyalest girl a mom could ask for.
The good thing is that the doc has said that her blood work is pristine - he even sound a little shocked, given her age - so the main thing is to bring down the inflammation and keep her from running around too much.
This has turned out to be surprisingly difficult for this dog of 16. As long as I sit still, she’ll sit somewhere about five inches from there. But if I move, she moves.
In particular, I need to keep her from following me up and down the stairs each time I need to walk from my office to fetch a cup of tea or a snack. We relocated the home office to the living room for a while. I’m also employing a suitcase as a makeshift baby gate.
She’s so sad :(
The Legend
Some of the important things to know about Elsie are:
1) She looks like a bat. In addition to the incredible cocktail glasses that my sister designed, she also once designed a logo for Elsie, a.k.a. Batdog.
Melissa Rotert is a genius.
I have to be careful when I call her that so that it doesn’t sound like I’m saying bad dog. The reason for this nickname should be obvious.
2) She looks like a cow. This was especially true when she was a puppy, and her whole head was black. She looks like nothing so much as a Holstein calf. I assumed that this was the reason she was named Elsie, but her rescue mom Beth informed me it was because Elsie was the name of the flying nun. Elsie’s ears resemble her habit. I have never seen Elsie actually fly, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she did. After I adopted her, I decided to keep her name Elsie. It matched so well with Eddie’s name, and they collectively became “The E’s”. When I adopted Elsie, Beth told me that Elsie’s ears were the reason she was rescued. Beth went to the animal shelter, and saw the shadow of the large pair of ears on the wall behind the reception desk. She asked if they had a goat back there, and they replied that no, it was a dog. Beth knew she needed to meet whatever kind of dog that was and wound up with an extra unintended foster dog that day. About three weeks later, Elsie was terrified driving home from Knoxville to Atlanta with her new brother and mom. But she got used to us.
3) She doesn’t want you to pet her. Oh, she’ll look at you like she does. But she doesn’t. She’ll walk up to you, wag her tail, and smile up at you. But don’t try to pet her. She almost certainly won’t bite, not least because she’s missing several critical teeth. But she might scream like a goat. I’m not 100% sure why she does this, but I speculate that my poor girl has aches and pains in her ears, her teeth and her neck. And these days, she can’t see your hand coming toward her.
4) She’s the best most beautiful girl.
If you want a dog as cool as Elsie, you can only find these one-of-a-kind pups at very special places, like your local shelter or a rescue like Beth’s! Hers is in Knoxville TN and it’s called Recycled Best Friends. You can find them on Facebook or Petfinder.
The Cocktail
Now onto the cocktail. I called this one the Vecchio Cane, which means “the old dog” in Italian. This recipe is a play on the “Vieux Carre”, meaning old quarter in French named for the French quarter of New Orleans. That cocktail mixes rye, cognac, and vermouth with Benedictine for an aromatic along with Peychaud’s and angostura bitters.
In my version, I replace the Benedictine and bitters with my favorite amaro, whose name means “Old Amaro of the Cape”. This is a sophisticated cocktail for sophisticated ladies of the world - by which I mean, of course, Elsie. This old dog is not just any old dog, she’s a great lady of experience and class.
The ingredients.
You’ll notice in the photo, I did not use rye whiskey in this iteration, but instead a single malt whiskey. This was because we did not have any rye whiskey. But also because Cut Spike is an excellent whiskey from my home state of Nebraska. It’s not easy to find if you don’t live there, but I recommend giving it a try if you run across it.
A total genius.
The Recipe
One part rye whiskey
One part cognac
One part sweet vermouth
One part Vecchio Amaro Del capo or similar mint-forward amaro
Garnish: maraschino cherry and a sprig of mint
