Drink 51: The Closed Shutters

The Name: The Closed Shutters

The Bar: The King's Arms (168 Whiteladies Road, Bristol, UK)

The Story Behind The Name: In my last post, I mentioned that I'm currently in England for grad school. Well, I've been here for a month and it's been absolutely amazing. A main reason why it's been so amazing is the fellow people in my course. While of course, any class of grad school students is going to grow close, when you're going to grad school for acting, the bonds formed tend to be really strong really quickly. On our first day, my class had a team-building exercise which involved us rolling around on top of each other, and something tells me that doesn't happen in law school.

One of the projects that my grad school group is currently working on is a performance of a series of acted out fairy tales. One of those fairy tales is the story of Blue Beard. If you're not familiar with Blue Beard, it's the story of a wealthy man who has a blue beard which everyone thinks is very ugly and so no one wants to marry him. He also happens to have been married several times before and all of his wives died under mysterious circumstances...but really, the blue beard is generally accepted as the thing that made him an ineligible bachelor. One day, a woman does agree to marry him because he is really rich and seems like maybe not such a bad guy. He gives her a set of keys to every door in his house, but mentions that one unlocks a closet which she must never open under any circumstances. Surprise, surprise, she decides to open that closet and finds that it contains the bodies of Blue Beard's dead wives which he killed! Anyone who has never read a story before is shocked! Blue Beard finds out and is so angry he tries to kill this bride too even though it would have been so easy for him to just not give her that one key in the first place. Luckily the bride's two brothers conveniently show up and kill him. Disappointingly, the fact that he has a blue beard ends up being completely irrelevant to the story in every way.

Blue Beard fanart

As we set about staging this piece, our director wanted us to really explore the language and the various ways it could be staged. As an exercise, he had us read a specific passage together as a group multiple times. Then, we read it in smaller groups. Then we read it but not everyone read every line together. We basically all just got intensely familiar with this one speech. Here's the text of it, from right before the bride opens the closet door.

When she reached the closet door, she paused for quite a while, remembering her husband's words. But temptation was far too strong for her. She picked out the little key and opened the door. At first, she could make out nothing clearly at all, because the shutters were all closed. But after a few moments she saw that the floor was spattered with lumps of congealed blood, and upon it were the bodies of dead women, each sprawled or hanging there in her wedding gown. These were the brides that the Blue Beard had married and had slaughtered one after another. The key fell from her hand. She tried to calm herself. Picked up the key. Locked the door. Hurried up the stairs to her chamber to try to recover. But she was too frightened.

It's a creepy passage. But, you know how when you say a word over and over again, it starts to sound funny or weird? Well, when you say a passage like this over and over again, you start to notice strange details that didn't initially seem odd. And after at least half an hour and repeating this passage, everyone in our group began to question the line, "because the shutters were all closed." Because...how is that important? She couldn't see anything at all. Fine. Why do we need to know about the windows? Isn't the more important detail that THERE ARE DEAD BODIES AND BLOOD EVERYWHERE?!?! The passage is told from the bride's perspective. So that means that she opened the door and after her eyes got adjusted, she had time to notice that the windows were shuttered. Instead of focusing on...and I can't stress this enough...the corpses of her brand new husband's previous wives. That he murdered. And that he keeps in a closet that he told her to not go into or he would murder her. In a situation like this, why would anyone notice the windows? And why would anyone care? At no point would anyone in the audience be seriously asking, "Why couldn't she see anything? SURELY THERE WAS LIGHT COMING IN THROUGH THE WINDOW! Ah, I see, the shutters were closed. Thanks for that detail." It became a comedic line for us, and one of our very first shared jokes as a group.

Ordering The Drink: I figured it would only be right if my first drink for this blog in England (What's That Drink has gone global, you guys!!!) was inspired by a joke born in England. One night, a group of us went to a local pub right by our school called The King's Arms and I knew I had to see if I could get a drink called The Closed Shutters. Now, even though I try to be polite, my concern when I do this is always that the bartender will think I'm an asshole for making such a strange request. And, especially being overseas, I don't want to come across as an obnoxious American. But, luckily, one of the bartenders at The King's Arms is a great guy named Jyuddah who is also a student at my school. I figured he'd be up to the challenge, and this would mark the first time I'd actually ordered one of these drinks from someone I knew personally (not counting my friend Jane who made The Murdered Moose of her own accord).

Jyuddah seemed a bit confused about the request, but immediately assured me he'd do it. "If someone asks me to invent a drink for them, I'm gonna do it!" he said, and I told him he could absolutely take his time to figure out the perfect drink. I didn't feel like Jyuddah was judging me, but I can't say the same for the couple that was sitting next to me at the bar who clearly thought I was insane.

After a bit, Jyuddah came back and placed the drink in front of me. "I hope you enjoy it," he said. "This is the weirdest thing I've ever made."

The Drink:

The Closed Shutters

Disaronno
Fire Eater hot cinnamon whiskey
Absolut Vodka
Lemon
Orange Juice
Soda

Assessment of Drink: I took a sip at the bar and Jyuddah asked if I liked it. "Do you want to try it?" I asked him. He dipped a straw in the drink and tasted his creation. His face lit up. "That's sick!" he exclaimed. And I have to agree. This drink was absolutely fantastic.

Every one of my classmates who tried the drink said it was delicious. It was really interesting--and had a nice balance of spice and sweetness to it. The amaretto and the cinnamon whiskey played well together, and with the citrus notes, it was a drink that was impressively layered and complex. Perhaps the most surprising thing about it, to me, was how clearly the lemon came through. I would have thought that the orange juice would have been the dominant mixer, but really it was the lemon. One classmate of mine said it reminded her of a lemon drop candy but in cocktail form, and that's a very accurate description. Especially because of the carbonation from the last minute splash of soda. It's a sophisticated drink, and one which was pleasantly unexpected. You'd think you understood the drink, but then you'd notice the spice from the cinnamon, or then you'd notice the hint of the amaretto, which meant you could appreciate the drink more as you kept drinking.

Does It Live Up To The Name: I mentioned before that there was a couple at the bar which clearly thought my drink request was stupid. Their problem had less to do with the idea of getting a drink based on a name, and more to do with the exact name given. "Give him something to work with!" they insisted. And, I agree, The Closed Shutters is a tough one to do. I thought that perhaps any drink that one would have as a nightcap would have worked--something comforting and perhaps a bit warm. so, this version of the Closed Shutters didn't fit the thought I had in my head. Because I know him, I was able to ask Jyuddah, "What was your thought behind the drink?" He shrugged. "I just thought it needed to have a bit of a kick." And, sure, it did have a bit of a kick thanks to that cinnamon whiskey. When I picture sunlight coming in through closed shutters, I think about those stripes of light that you can get. In some ways, I think the layered flavors of this cocktail could represent those stripes of light--each one peeking in in surprising ways.

Is the drink a perfect representation of the name? Probably not. But as the couple at the bar said, this was a really tough name. And considering how good the drink turned out, I'm definitely not complaining. Thanks, Jyuddah, for bringing the closed shutters to life! I'm glad there were no lumps of congealed blood to be found.