The Calm Before the Swarm
Arriving an hour early to style my table, it was one of those nights reminiscient of my days at the Boom Boom Room, wherein you actually felt the electricity tingle and the magic build.
Just a few feet away from where I distributed the champagne coupes, arrived the Step and Repeat (for newbies of this nomenclature, me at the top of this list, the Step and Repeat is the banner you always see at movie premieres that’s patterned with the logos of the sponsors). Then, the ubiquitous crimson carpet unfurled.
Most magic of all was the entrance of one Angie Freeman. If she never had one growing up in North Carolina, this was her debutante ball.
Swathed in a stunning gown by Naven, she sashayed in with her signature wide smile and the room glowed amber upon her already golden skin.
Here she is, with her friend Jennifer Johnson:
And with Desi Lydic from MTV’s Awkward:
Soon, dolled up actresses in tiny cocktail frocks, the local Silverlake elite, designers and friends all circled like figurines in a carousel.
And they were clasping my cocktails:
The recipes I served can be found here, and they were well-received!
Kappa is a new pisco I recently became privy to. It hails from Chile, not Peru, the latter of which has long claimed (and, for the most part, been accepted as) the true home of “real” Pisco. Ask my friend Jackie about them (she’s the California brand ambassador) and she’ll tell you a colorful story about the civil war and Chile vs. Peru’s claim of the invention of the Pisco Sour.
Beyond that, who doesn’t love nostalgic connotation? The sleek, midnight-blue bottle reminds me of the rocket pops I’d have from the ice cream truck as a kid, and the name reminds me of my college days as an Alpha Gamma Delta (Kappa Alpha Theta was our rival sorority). To us, they were simply the Kappas. (And the ones who constantly showed us up in grade point average!)
But for real, the sexy bottle was designed by Osha Tai, designer of Louis Vuitton bags and… the first aluminum Heineken bottle. And the name comes from the Southern Cross constellation in the beautiful Valley of Elqui, under which lies a distillery where the grapes are grown and made into this sweet and floral pisco.
I made two large batches of the white sangria, and I ran out within two hours!
Which turned out to be okay, as I had plenty of supply of the Cham-pear cocktail.
A Champear step and repeat:
Angie “doing her thing”:
And there I was, in the middle of the hive of energy, the sweet spot, doing mine:
They say that chance favors the prepared.
So I must have been prepared the night I happened upon Bee Free Boutique and met Ms. Freeman. Within a day, I wrote her first piece of press for Haute Living Magazine.
They also say that the past is history, the future’s a mystery and the present is a gift. I’m thankful for the one I got, and wish Angie the best!
All photography by Jo Alexander, josephalexanderphotography.com
