Gin Season

 

It first occurred to me there are more than four seasons when I worked in advertising. Part of my job was to plan the digital and social content for our clients, figuring out what those brands should say to its target audiences throughout the year on Facebook, Instagram, in blogs. Sitting at my desk in my office after 5:00, sipping bourbon on ice, I realized that, for me, the year didn’t really begin on January 1. It began on September 5, when my kids went back to school. To me, that was a more significant manifestation of a new year.

Sometime after that I learned the traditional Chinese calendar, shared by other Asian nations, has 24 seasons called solar terms, two a month, and that each recognizes a shift in nature, usually related to agriculture. For example, early March is the Awakening of Insects, when those creatures, alerted by spring rains, come out of hibernation. In September, the first transition from summer to autumn is called White Dew, a change in the color and plentitude of that morning moisture. My friend Paul Shin, a journalist, novelist and instructor of swordsmanship, has actually been slowly writing a beautiful book about this – at least I hope it becomes a book – in which he not only describes each solar term but composes an original poem and relates Korean traditions that go with it. For example, he writes of Ha-lo or “Cold Dew,” which occurs in early October:

 

It’s the season to make chrysanthemum wine and enjoy social gatherings. Mackerel stew was a favorite seasonal dish.

In traditional poetry related to Hal-lo, you’d often see references to climbing up to high places and looking toward your hometown. It was custom to hike up a mountain and wear dogwood (수유, 茱萸) fruit in your hair, which was believed to ward off evil spirits because the deep red color of the fruit was considered auspicious…

It was a season of generosity, and if someone passed by your house, they would often be invited in for a meal, a snack or a drink of makgeolli (rice wine).

 

While Asia has fixed these date ranges on the calendar, I believe many of us have personal versions, significant annual moments or periods. I sometimes think of them as “micro-seasons,” like the return to school. I learned to notice these “micro-seasons” in myself because I became so attuned to the marketing calendar, to “holiday season,” the mad stretch of consumption and entertaining that goes from October to the end of the year, to “back-to-school season” that, absurdly, starts in July, to hot dog season, pumpkin spice season, vacation season, new car season…

Around these micro-seasons, I have developed… let’s call them macro-seasons. They are whiskey season and gin season. It’s not an ironclad rule, but I tend to drink old-fashioneds between September and May, gin martinis from May through August. Some things, of course, I drink all year – beer, shots and beer, J&B over ice. I don’t think I’m alone in having a “cold weather drink” and a “warm weather drink.” What really cemented this for me was that I learned to make martinis the way I like them – gin, usually Beefeater, better vermouth, usually Noilly Pratt, and a twist of lemon peel in a frozen glass – and this became an excellent complement for me to a hot summer Saturday. I like to have one on hand as I fill up the kitchen with music and cooking. An old fashioned I like to carry to the reading chair by the gas fire, or the basement where I keep the record player.

So far, I don’t think I’ve said anything unusual, but I have noticed an interesting side effect, and it has something to do with the children of a season, its days and hours. Part of the reason I like to drink is because of its effect on time. It creates its own bubble, a state in which only the present is considered. I’m middle-aged, and find myself increasingly out of sync with time, either too far ahead of it – I am a planner, after all – or having watched it evaporate too quickly. Drinking pushes that away. For the three or four hours that I’m enjoying a cocktail or three, I’m perfectly on time. Time to sigh and to sing. Time to let the mind roam. To reminisce, and scheme, appreciate and chuckle, dance a little – or a lot – it’s usually a good idea when I’m drinking to put my phone in another room.

Having locked in these two macro-seasons, though, particularly the bright happiness of gin season, I find myself wanting to use it to stave off the turning of the year. Every September, summer seems to have gone too fast. Like I didn’t get enough days drinking beer by the lake, greeting the still visible sun when I leave work. Having given gin authority over summer, I always think I can use it to delay the fall – and don’t get me wrong, I love fall. But like the magic in Paul Shin’s recorded folklore, I often feel that if I drink a martini in September, it will hold back the wind, restrain the color in the leaves. It’s no truer for me, probably, than it was for the neolithic shaman, but I feel, perhaps in ancestral memory, that I could strike the same primitive bargain – I make the concoction, God lets me control the seasons. Will let me stop time.