Where I live is 150 kilometres (100 miles) from the ocean, with a fantastic mountain view. I am not a "water" person. Water makes me nervous. Water, open water, is threatening and I do not think of it as linking or connecting me with anything, least of all with adventure or rescue, which the phrase "message in a bottle" seems to evoke for me. So I couldn't think of anything connected to this topic. But then, as I prepared for my birthday party on the 16th, it hit me. Bottle.
I had purchased a huge "bottle" on the plane en route home from my bucket list visit to England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Wales. A bottle which became the focus for this special Kittens and Cream party. The cream. An Irish cream. Which I had first lapped up in 1978 on my first trip to Ireland. When friends who were travelling and stopping the Winter Solstice holiday weeks with relatives invited us to join them in Clara, County Offaly. Airport line-ups. Hand-frisked luggage and body pat-downs. Durty Nelly's and Bunratty Castle. Clonmacnoice. Mullingar. Tullamore. Dublin. How two inches of snow shut down everything--roads, taxis, airports. Peeling fresh shrimp. Picking brussels sprouts off tall stalks growing in front gardens. Bare trees in green fields, ivy everywhere. Guinness and Harp and lager and lime. And this delicious concoction of cream, whiskey, with mystery undertastes (I'm still not sure what--chocolate?)
When I returned home to Canada those many years ago, whenever I found myself in an LC, a Manitoba Liquor Control Board outlet, which was much more often in those days than now, I asked if they had this cream. Finally, someone had an answer. They had investigated. They had researched. They had tried. They had contacted Ireland but had been told: because of the cream content, the liqueur did not travel well. They were working on some way to stabilize it and as soon as the scientists had devised this precious formula, Irish cream would be ready for export and Manitoba would be ordering it. Yes!
I'm not sure how long that took, but, true to their word, the cream arrived and has remained a special treat ever since. Although, when I ordered my duty-free bottle on the plane this past summer, I didn't realize it would be a 40-ouncer (one litre, along with a750 ml 26 ounces of vodka for the house-sitter.) All the more to share, I told myself. Clink, clink, clink, as I dragged my way through customs. I left it unopened for six months (Best before November 2014 it says on the bottle) so that it would be there for my special birthday. I did enjoy it, this message from the past in a large brown bottle. And I do believe my eight or ten special kitten guests did enjoy it too. I resisted the temptation to brag to them about how I thought that one of the greatest achievements of my life is the fact that I am responsible for the arrival of the original Irish cream in Canada. Bottles, bottles, and more bottles. Bottles of love from the cows of Ireland.
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