Cocktail 5: The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether

And now came the climax — the catastrophe of the drama. As no resistance, beyond whooping and yelling and cock-a-doodling, was offered to the encroachments of the party without, the ten windows were very speedily, and almost simultaneously, broken in. But I shall never forget the emotions of wonder and horror with which I gazed, when, leaping through these windows, and down among us pele-mele, fighting, stamping, scratching, and howling, there rushed a perfect army of what I took to be Chimpanzees, Ourang-Outangs, or big black baboons of the Cape of Good Hope.

In response to his inquiry, the narrator learns that the “soothing system” has recently been abandoned due to some unnamed, terrible consequences. During dinner he gradually comes to realize the assembled guests are a bit “off.” A little later a commotion ensues as a number of creatures resembling large, hairy animals break into the room and attack the narrator and the other diners. In the big reveal (which had been telegraphed quite plainly throughout the tale), we learn that Monsieur Maillard had earlier lost his mind and had become a patient at the mad-house, and then he led an uprising where the patients locked the staff away. They replaced the soothing-system with a so-called “System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether” whereby they tarred and feathered the staff…which accounts for the appearance of the baboon-like creatures, who are in fact the tarred-and-feathered staff. Who could have ever seen that coming?

The full story is available here.

Your main job here is making white chocolate “feathers.” Get some good white baking chocolate, and melt it in a double boiler (or, if you’re lazy like me, use a microwave). Pour the melted chocolate into a silicone feather mold. What, you don’t have a feather mold? Neither did I. But I bought one on Amazon for five bucks. Pay attention to the size of the molds; small feathers are better than large ones for this cocktail.

Now, select a glass. If you want to be proper about it, use a dessert wine glass. But make sure it’s large enough to accommodate your “feathers.” (I used a coupe glass.) Now, coat half the inner rim of the glass with liquid “magic shell” chocolate that’s made for topping ice cream. Get the dark chocolate version if you can, as it best resembles “tar.” It helps to warm the bottle in hot water for a few minutes. As soon as you’ve coated the inside of the glass, immediately press your white chocolate “feathers” into the chocolate coating. Give them a haphazard arrangement, with some of them sticking up above the rim of the glass. Now put the prepared glass in the refrigerator so the “tar” will harden.

Finally, after the “tar” has set, remove the glass from the fridge and pour a nice glass of Sauternes. If you’re making this cocktail for someone else, kindly press their hand and say “join me now in a glass of Sauterne.” Ignore the pandemonium about you.