Table of Contents

Editor’s Introduction • Gretchen Tessmer

Corpse Reviver No. 4 • Henry Herz
Visions of Manhattan • Ian Li
Stuffed Koala and Other Cocktails of the Near Future • PS Cottier
Tempest • Devan Barlow
What It Tastes Like • Gerri Leen
Against a Night Mare • Michael Perry
Sharp-Eared Potion • Anna Madden
Last Call • Sebastian Wright
Sangria • Deborah L. Davitt
Brandy Old Fashioned • Amelia Gorman
Darkside Speakeasies • Casey Aimer
Serenity Potion • Elis Montgomery
Bayou Tourists • Frederick Charles Melancon
An Alien Walks Into a Bar • Lisa Timpf
Two Waters and a Beast • Arda Mori
spirits • Lee Clark Zumpe
The Protagonist Comes Home • R. L. Cohen

Corpse Reviver No. 4

Round about the pitcher go,
In it lizard entrails throw.
Toad bespeckled, wart and blot,
Boil thou it in rusted pot.
Set aside to let it cool,
Its noisome scent makes vampires drool.
          Shut thy nose against the reek.
          Ancient words of power speak.
          Here be drink to raise the dead,
          Once the hellish spell be said.
Carcass of a long-dead snake,
Add its offal with a shake.
Termites from a rotten log,
Beetle legs and spleen of hog.
Crushed snail’s shell and raven’s claw;
Rend the blood from possum paw.
          Shut thy nose against the reek.
          Ancient words of power speak.
          Here be drink to raise the dead,
          Once the hellish spell be said.
Python’s tongue and hornet’s sting,
Gall of skunk and black bat’s wing.
Mash the liver of a shrew,
Mix it gently in the brew.
Wyvern scale and fang of bear,
From thy scalp, remove a hair.
          Shut thy nose against the reek.
          Ancient words of power speak.
          Here be drink to raise the dead,
          Once the hellish spell be said.
Choose a glass, commence to pour.
Dust the brim with werewolf gore.
Sprinkle ash about the rim, 
Add a spider on a whim.
For a drink of utmost power,
Garnish with a foxglove flower.

—Henry Herz

The Corpse Reviver and Corpse Reviver No. 2 are real drinks mixed as long ago as 1861. This version obviously draws inspiration from Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

Visions of Manhattan

She crafts temporal cocktails for those who yearn, 
stirring together her signature Manhattan using 

whiskey aged under perpetual moonlight, 
vermouth sweetened by glitzy skyline views, 
dark bitters infused with an afternoon at Bergdorf’s, 
topped with a cherry preserved in liquefied diamond. 

When guests gulp it down, its earthy, heady taste 
grants them a glimpse of future New York, 
where spacesuit tuxes and quicksilver cocktail dresses 
soar up to 1000th-floor penthouses in self-flying cars. 

But on nights when I crave a stronger escape, 
I beg her to mix me a different drink, 

composed of jazzy riffs from a subway saxophonist, 
the unyielding grin of a wizened cabbie, 
a yawn from the neighborhood bodega cat, 
finished with the citrusy twist of twilight in the Village. 

Its bittersweet flavor transports me to past New York, 
where I munch on 50-cent cheese slices 
atop rickety sidewalk cocktail tables under garish lights 
with old friends who’ve since departed the city of dreams.

—Ian Li

Stuffed Koala and Other Cocktails
of the Near Future

The atmosphere
A thin line tops
Chartreuse in a balloon glass.
You burn it, avidly

The Svalbard 
Huge lumps of ice, gummy bears
spiced apple cider, hot.
The glass runneth onto the bar

The monsoon Mary
desperate churn
watch women drowning
clutching at toothpicks

Half and half
A walled glass
one side champagne
the other dust

F88 Austeyr
Glass decorated by mini-rifle
pointing outwards.
Keeps the contents clean

Stuffed koala
Minty fluffy nostalgia
(The last one dropped to 50° heat
in 2035)

Pontikka
Gather potatoes.
Take your Vegemite jar
Finnish. Finish. Fin.

—PS Cottier

The F88 Austeyr is a rifle manufactured in Australia, and Vegemite is an iconic Australian spread.

Tempest

Winds whip, shriek
I step outside
turquoise teapot in hand
crack near the 
handle sealed with delicate
metal scavenged from a fallen
spacecraft’s helm

This land has been through
too much, storms worsening
I must swallow this tempest

The sky crackles with green
light, displeased but
unable to refuse me
Heat and wind funnel downward
until the teapot is ten times
heavier, my shoulders complain
as I drag it inside

The teapot shakes, flaunting my stare
I choose a cup made by
a centuries-past predecessor,
pale gray painted with fiddleheads and snails
Pour out the storm, steam roiling
with angry clouds and lightning
Sharply charged air stabs at my face

The tempest tastes
of thwarted fury
scorched minerals
char

—Devan Barlow

What It Tastes Like

He’s in the officer’s club
In the section that says
“Bad day, leave me alone”
When he sees her coming, wearing a
Sympathetic smile as she sets a glass of
What is probably his favorite
Bourbon in front of him and sits
She was his first officer
Now she has her own ship
Her eyes are full of compassion
“They were good people”
He raises his glass, unsure how
She knows this fast, but glad she does
“They were. To the dead”
She lifts her glass: “Never forgotten”
The bourbon tastes like sorrow and regret

He watches her find a table in the O Club
In the same section he did a few weeks earlier
She holds her side as she slides into the booth
“Two Shirley Temples” he orders
Then carries them over
“What are those?” Her eyes are wary
“Things that won’t interfere with
The no doubt very good pain meds you’re on”
“You brought two—you’re forgoing booze?”
He nods because for this she needs sober company
She survived the skirmish; others didn’t
Her first casualties
“You want to talk about it?”
“Really don’t.” But she does anyway
The Shirley Temple tastes like trust and pain

He has a bottle of champagne, is waiting for her
Even though he hasn’t asked her to come
But a captain they served under has made admiral
And he knows she’ll find him
And she does, her smile playful as she stops
At the door, as if she might not come in
But she does then bumps him with her hip
So he moves down the booth as she slides
In next to him, saying others are coming
Fellow crewmates, who smile as they join them
And then their captain now admiral
Pulling up a chair to sit at the head
With a huge grin on their face
He opens the bottle and they all toast
One of the good ones getting rewarded
The champagne tastes like liquid joy

He’s at the bar, enjoying a beer
She slides onto the stool next to him
Tells the bartender-bot she’ll order later
Not her style—he studies her
She’s blushing, also not her style
“We’re the same rank now and you’re
Not my boss and I’m not your subordinate
And I want to ask you out but if you’re
Going to say no, then just tell me now so I
Can flee and drink somewhere else… forever”
He’s marveling at how many words
She got out so fast and how red her
Face is but he plays it cool, waves over
The bar-bot and orders her a beer
“You’re saying yes?”
“I am. And thanks for asking first”
They clink their bottles, her eyes are
As soft as he’s ever seen them,
He’s pretty sure his are too
The beer tastes like respect and love and things
They never reached for before their time

—Gerri Leen

Against a Night Mare

Hunched, heaving her wheel on your sleeping chest,
she says screams are wool for her spindle
and pedals your heart’s treadle with pricking pumps.

You, pinned in bed, hair plastered in cold sweat plaits,
will once again wake drenched in dread and dawnsorrow
having billowed bolts of thread black as a borderland ram.

Listen close, I have a cure that takes some care.
Follow my approach with the patient precision of a purl stitch
and no night wight will knit shrouds from your fears. 

Fetch flax once flashed in April lightning.
Gather first-of-spring grass, not yet green.
Gut sable geese still filled with southern seeds.
Mix in pennyroyal, mint, and mistletoe berries.
Add feverfew leaves. Chew for a fortnight.
Combine in bowls of boiled butter and spit.
Spread the salve on iron scissor tips.
Snip snow white cotton floss as you recite,

I am the knit picker—
no thread avoids my fray.
I am the seam ripper—
nothing sewn will stay.
I am the ash-handled ax
smashing weaving patterns.
I am the sackcloth fire
eating the looms of Saturn.

Thus the sun shall slit every shade with its shine.

—Michael Perry

Sharp-Eared Potion

You visit the weald called Etymon
whose mother tongue is floriography.

Bottles glint, nightshining from a bigleaf maple
reaching branches across the neighboring street
as if something out of a fairytale.

Milky sap brews and elixirs and darkening flasks
hang from threads of orbweavers, the liquefied remains
wrapped in glass and silk, stored for later consumption
among the gray-aged branches and winged samara.

Trailing behind you is your own familiar:
Doubt is a coyote with yellow eyes
fur marred by sticky violet nupur blooms.

In a familiar mantra, the coyote says,
You don’t belong here.
Too old, too young.

Etymon listens, same as you did
in the second-floor bathroom of the Westin
tears like torn petals, wetting cheeks
dusted with satin Estée Lauder matte foundation
because you wear confidence, borrowing it,
hoping it’ll sink into your pores.

You’re not good enough.
Everyone knows you’re a fraud.
No one likes or respects you.
You’re going to fail.

The weald tells you to pluck free a potion.
“One that is empty,” she says, gently.
“Some potions must be
filled rather than emptied
to cure what ails.”

Guided by the raised hackles of your familiar,
you select a once-upon-a-time perfume
the honeyed glass stained by ghostly scents
of green, leafy notes, sweet undertones,
evening promises of vetiver and amber spice.

You hear a faint whispering: 
Stop doubting yourself.

—Anna Madden

Last Call

The Blacksmith’s Arms
is a British pub like any other,
save for one key detail-
its location.

Formerly residing on the corner 
of the street I grew up on,
it now finds itself at 
the end of the universe.

Where once five old men 
downed pint after pint,
now sits an oversized squid
with four too many tentacles.

The side of the bar
was once home to 
two fruit machines, 
swept away by gravity.

The few patrons
entertain themselves 
with a round of darts
but the black hole interferes.

Some things don’t change.
The fire alarm fails to recognise
the burning star up in the rafters 
but springs to life at the toastie machine

The smokers are still
floating around outside,
though in a vacuum 
that’s somewhat more literal.

Funny how the last place 
in all of the known universe
is the place I had my first kiss.
My teenage sweetheart is still by the bar.

I wonder if they see her too?

—Sebastian Wright

Sangria

Red, red wine filling up my glass,
red, red wine turned to hippocras—

to drink it was to think for an instant
that you really were toasting
to your very good health, 
the cinnamon, the ginger, 
the pepper, the cardamom
all coming together
to heal your afflicted body
and soothe  your troubled soul.

In later years, there was sangria,
the very name implies blood—
sang, sangre, 
whichever language you choose

red wine and citrus
and just a little spice
I remember I used to like it
just like that
back when I really did drink…
wine.

But these days, or rather nights,
I cannot slide luscious slices
of lemon or lime
into my glass
cannot infuse my tipple
with some brandy
or clarify the wine
with a little milk punch to strain out
the color and the solids,
leaving nothing behind
but the flavor of spice
and the memory of the vine

for the blood is the life,
as they like to say, 
and it’s certainly true for me,
sang, sangre, sangria,
red, red wine filling up my cup
as I sip from your lips
and I drink you up.

—Deborah L. Davitt

Brandy Old Fashioned

Prime rib and walleye. Pickle plates and a quirk
of the dairy state. Hodag lumbers in to drink
a brandy old fashioned at the bar next to me.

“I stay here because I like the sweetness,” he says.
“They make them wrong next door,” and next door
for his four tree-trunk legs means Minnesota or Michigan.

“They get the cherries from Door County,” I say.
He nods his froggy head, heavy with teeth.
“What about the oranges?” Hodag rasps out.

But I don’t know. Some place drenched in mystery
and myth, I imagine. Some fae place far away,
where ice is only ever purchased and never fished.

Hodag stays for another, and so do I. He blocks
the exit with his scaled body. That’s my excuse to
remain and drink here in the everydayish world

where we have nothing so mythic as orange trees
or bikinis or alligators lazily afloat in murky bodies.
Where we have only me and Hodag at the supper club.

—Amelia Gorman

Darkside Speakeasies

Last night I barhopped between galaxies
alongside a woman as I coped with
hops and hopes we were more
than simply good company.

In darkside speakeasies we upheld
their names, sped through convoys
of conversation and courting markers.

By the second stop we were best friends 
surveying damp venues as we wandered
and wondered about our shared dreams.

At the fourth we kissed like galactic pirates,
legs stiff and chrome, one eye closed and
three more open, holding each other 
as support beams withstanding friction.

Around the sixth we were honeymooners,
cosmopolitans taking us as we swam in love.
Over the planet’s riverwalk we sat like two
sunrises before she whispered her desire
for a poem, as if I’m a vending machine.

But in that zero hour how do I explain we 
are building future underneath history?
That every undone brewery window
accents with a glow like our smiles?

At our final bar we huddled together
grasping our old fashioneds, walking
for hours searching for her ship, too
focused on one another to remember.

I tell her a lost ship is like a lost heart. 
That you know it exists somewhere 
but you need help finding it.

And eventually,
                             we do.

—Casey Aimer

Serenity Potion

We saw our magic
 shy from the light.
 We saw the dimness
 of our days. Incense
 was as the smoke
 of burning bodies,
 and herbs stung,
 acid on our fingertips.
 In our ignorance we had turned to 
the Book. We had to tell the magic of our 
ancestors that we were returning. We had to believe
 it would welcome us back. We had to crack the Book’s
 spine and pen our sins in its pages. We had to bleed for this
 but our blood ran black. We had to burn the Book and believe the
 smoke would release us to ourselves. We asked the true magic to
 watch as the fire raged. We prayed it would listen. We brewed the 
  one potion we would never drink, boiling black blood, Book ashes, 
 infant tears on old faces. We stewed in the names of those we had 
 harmed. We added forgiveness but not all forgave. This was their
 right as it was ours to change. We watched the brew and we saw 
 each other. When we wavered we wept and held each other
 up. We scented sandalwood and ground valerian and our 
fingers did not burn. We meditated over the potion
until true magic hinted at us through the 
steam. We believed it was there and
 we believed it understood.
We believed it would
keep us, if 
we chose 
 to be kept.
 We saw others like us. We found their Books. 
We built them a pyre and gave them the recipe.

—Elis Montgomery

Bayou Tourists

There’s a bar out there on the marsh
where swamp selkies mind tables
after shedding their nutria skins.
Most don’t ask or even know why
they wade up to that table—no,
really, that slab of cypress wood
a collection of striations,
which hosts all types of a Chantilly
caked between layers of ice out
in all this heat, but people don’t
ask for that.  They want hurricanes
or grenades without any sass
as if all this won’t make their bile
spill out into the stagnant water
that we all stand in.

—Frederick Charles Melancon

An Alien Walks Into a Bar

and he is from Alpha Centauri
and he asks you to mix him
a Tequila Sunrise
but not just any Tequila Sunrise;
he wants you to use
agave grown and hand-picked
on the Martian plains,
and grenadine made
from pomegranate shrubs
descended from the ancient tree
Hades once raided,
orange juice squeezed
from fruit picked
in Ganymede’s greenhouses,
and most importantly,
a few drops of dew
harvested under a spring sunrise
here on Earth

and you may have 
some of these ingredients,
or none of them,
but you know what he’s after,
a time machine
that will transport him back
to a moment he remembers
with joy or sadness,
it doesn’t really matter,
so you place the drink
in front of him
and wait, with furrowed brow,
relaxing
when he smacks his lips
and smiles

—Lisa Timpf

Two Waters and a Beast

—Arda Mori

spirits

take a sip of buckwheat whisky
on a cold, winter night
beneath auroral ghost-lights,
while spectral shadows drift
along the well-trod way
reprising forgotten roles.

savor a glass of cognac
on a cold, winter night
in a small, cozy chalet
beneath the Vosges,
where abandoned trenches 
still scar the Rhine valley.

have a shot of horilka
on a cold, winter night
on the outskirts of Bucha;
flashes of distant explosions
illuminate ethereal shapes
lingering on the roadside.

—Lee Clark Zumpe

The Protagonist Comes Home

and so, after the ever after, you go out for a drink
at the bar east of the sun, west of the moon.

and Baba Yaga is sitting in a corner booth
slamming back vodka from Koschei’s eggshell 
while a drunk Frankenstein curses the review-board 
over his latest rejected research proposal.

and you accept a dance with the Green Fairy
until she turns all blue and offers you a wish
but you know where that leads—firebirds
and golden bridles and broken promises.

and so, you slide into Baba Yaga’s booth
falling into place beside the oldest stories.

Grandmother, you say, hand sticking to the grimy wood
Tell me the future.

and Baba Yaga leans over a pile of children’s bones to cup
your face—her nails sharp as iron. her breath warm. 

Dearie, the future is another drink.

—R. L. Cohen