New Year/New You Champagne Cocktail
Laura Brennan
Forget resolutions! This cocktail will guarantee a new you for the new year.
Ingredients
1 sugar cube
2 to 3 dashes aromatic bitter memories
1 ounce Cognac à la Chopin
4 to 6 ounces Champagne
Ashes of a dream
Six pomegranate seeds, for garnish
On New Year’s Eve, nestle the sugar cube into the bottom of a Champagne flute.
Saturate the cube with bitter memories. This may come in the form of tears, blood, or bile, chef’s choice.
Add the Cognac. The Cognac should have been aged in a glass jar à la Chopin, that is, alongside your diseased and rapidly pickling heart. Use that excuse to justify why you have never been able to love.
Fill the flute with Champagne, more expensive than you can afford, since you have not lived up to your early promise. After all, paying the bill, like fulfilling your potential, will be a Tomorrow-You problem.
Watch as your cube of bitter memories dissolves into nothing.
On a piece of paper, write out all remaining hopes and dreams. Some choose to write these in blood, but that’s purely a decorative decision. It will have no effect on the cocktail itself, and keeping the blood flowing will demand more tenacity and grit than you have shown in years.
Set a match to the paper and let the ashes of your dreams fall into the flute. Stir gently to incorporate.
Garnish with the six pomegranate seeds.
On the first stroke of midnight, lift the Champagne cocktail to your lips.
On the second, gulp it down greedily.
On the fourth stroke, choke, like Persephone, on the seeds of yet another poor decision.
On the sixth stroke, be filled with impotent rage.
On the seventh, hurl the Champagne flute to the floor.
Waste the following strokes by staring at the glass shards and reveling in your new-found power of destruction. What could you have accomplished if only you had opted to burn everything down rather than attempting to build, to create?
On the eleventh stroke of midnight, realize it is too late.
On the final stroke of twelve, fling open the front door. Allow your spirit to flee, along with any residual good luck that might still be lurking in the house. Leave the shell of your body empty, expectant, waiting for someone — or something — new to move in. Let them clean up the mess you have left behind.
Unlike Janus, do not look back.
About the author:
Laura Brennan's stories have appeared in anthologies ranging from horror (Hell Comes to Hollywood) to kidlit (Super Puzzletastic Mysteries). Her superpower is, sadly, not flying, but instead helping people condense their life's work into a couple of snappy sentences. Find her tips and tricks at pitchingperfectly.substack.com
