johnbyronkuhner.com

Dolgoprudnyy You know you’re living in the Catskills when in your no-plumbing residence you have not one, but two home-fermented drinks given to you by neighbors.  On the left, a beer flavored with locally scavenged mugwort, and on the right, a hard cider from locally scavenged apples – the American colonial drink par excellence.  Emerson calls it “the sociable beverage,” as it was the basic American form of alcohol.  I’ve been reading Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire, and in it he makes the ingenious connection that Johnny Appleseed was “the American Dionysus,” whose apple-trees were more than anything the gift of sweetness and intoxication, the apple serving as the American grape.