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Taylor Jackson, Lt. Metro Nashville Police Department, Homicide.
What can we say about Taylor Jackson? She’s tall, blond, gorgeous, smart, well-bred, but rebellious. She’s tough, strong, pretty, leggy, manly, yet feminine. She kills it in a dress and will kick your ass for noticing. Lieutenant Taylor Jackson, the leading lady in a series of detective novels written by Nashville author J.T. Ellison, is unique.
I met Taylor at Patterson House, local gin-joint, dark, tin-ceiling, and bookshelves for walls. We sat at the end of the bar, either side of the corner, facing each other. I ordered my usual, and asked her what’s her poison. She said, “I like beer, maybe a wine. Don’t drink much heavy liquor.”
Thank god James, the friendly barkeep and mix-master picked up on that vestigial Belle Meade drawl. “Young lady,” he said, “trust me on this, you need a cocktail.” He tore a handful of mint, slammed it in a sterling tumbler and twisted the classic julep into a new and delightful taste of old-Nashville.
The Cocktail
Taylor’s Old-School
2 oz Jack Daniels Tennessee Whiskey (the Nashville connection)
1/4 oz Rothman & Winter Apricot Liqueur
1/4 oz Demarara Syrup
13 Drops of Peychaud's Bitters
3 Sprigs of Mint
Place the mint in the bottom of a metal julep cup and bruise it. Then, using your muddler, pull the mint up the inside wall of the cup to coat the inside with mint oil. Press the mint back down in the tin and then add the whiskey and stop. Give the spirit a moment to extract still more mint essence from the mint. After ten seconds or so add the rest of the ingredients and fill the cup about 3/4 of the way full with crushed ice. Swizzle the drink until a frosty coat of ice is built on the exterior of the cup. Cap the drink with a heaping dome of crushed ice and garnish with a bouquet of mint and a straw.
- - -
After enjoying a few too many, we slip out the back door, down the wooden steps to the secret patio behind The Patterson House. We pick a table—there’s nobody else—and settle into seats for a pause. Taylor reaches into her purse and pulls out a cigar. “Guilty pleasure,” she says, clips the end, lights it, and delivers it across the table. Thoughtful lady, that Taylor…
The Cigar
by Joe Zike, UpTowns
CAO – Sopranos Edition
Wrapper: Brazil
Binder: Honduras
Filler: Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Columbia
A local woman, she knows Nashville's players and fakers. She'd support the homegrown CAO cigar company, and her smoke of choice from the 14 blends they make would be the "Sopranos" edition. This blend has rich cocoa and coffee notes. Her size, fittingly, would be the "Boss" which is 7 inches long with a 56 ring gauge. It's the right cigar for her to blow smoke rings around the shrewdest criminal mind. -JZ
