The Barbara Lorie is a variation of a creole with bitters (I’m not saying anything about you, Barbara), once famously known as the Barbara West, after one of the last surviving passengers of the Titanic.
The drink is passionate, severe, alluring, intelligent and slightly acerbic-just like our Barbara Lorie, one of the grand divas of Chatham County.
The Barbara was one of the cocktails featured in Global/Local Mixology, the first in a series of Drink ‘n Think Symposia I’m leading, along with Colbey Reid, as part of Abundance NC’s DIY Sustainability Workshop Series. The symposia are designed to revive the ancient Hellenic practice of using drink as a tincture for exploring new ideas and testing them out in gamesome conversation with others.
The distillery’s scheduled symposia invite citizens of North Carolina’s Piedmont region to gather and…
• learn about aspects of western drinking traditions that have been suppressed, but still have have value, in our time
• learn to mix – and taste! – featured cocktails made with locally distilled spirits
• renew the ancient practice of using cocktail consumption to promote conversational communion
Together, Reid and Phillips will explore the art and rituals of distilling, fortifying, blending, and aging.
Read more about the idea behind The Drink ‘n Thinks, and check out the next two symposia in the series: Prohibition & Repeal Day Party, and Cocktail Alchemy.
Gary Phillips took up an interest in alcohol when he was seventeen and was trained as a bartender in 1979 at the Ambrosia Bar in Amherst, Massachusetts. In Chapel Hill he tended at the Pyewacket, Orient Express and Aurora, plus occasional gigs at various dives. He loves dives and will probably own one someday. Over the years he has invented several cocktails of note for special occasions, such as Persimmon Martinis For The Masses, which were served to hundreds at the Piedmont Bio-Fuels Plant in 2011 during a celebration for the Dogwood Alliance.
