September, 2018 - Margaret Murie - Maple Smash

Margaret Thomas Murie (1902-2003)

Born in Seattle Washington, and relocated at the age of 5 to Fairbanks, Alaska, “Mardy” is recognized as the “Grandmother of the Conservation Movement” by both the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society.  After becoming the first woman to graduate from the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines, and marrying her husband in 1924, she moved to Jackson Wyoming where she accompanied her husband in studying ecology and the elk populations in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. She was instrumental in creating the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the passage of the Wilderness Act of 2964, and the recipient of the Audobon Medal, the John Muir Award, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. After her husband’s death in 1963, Mardy continued the conservation work and became writing articles and letters, as well as making public speeches. She returned to Alaska to survey for the National Parks Service, and worked on the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act signed by Carter in 1980, doubling the size of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. 

The Drink:

Maple Smash
1 oz gin
1 oz maple brandy
juice from half a lemon
7-8 blueberries
1/4 oz maple syrup

Drinkability: 4
Drunkability: 4
Accessibility: 4
Taxic Diversity: 3
Priority for Conservation: 4

Comments: *AZ requests to lower Accessibility to at least 3 retrospectively. The maple liquor wasn't that easy to find.

From "Women in Conservation" hosted by Alabazam and Boiler Maker

September, 2018 - Alice Eastwood - A Cure for What Ails You

Alice Eastwood (1859-1953)

Born in Toronto Canada, was an early ecofeminist.  The family moved to Denver when she was a teenager, and would forgo college in lieu of teaching high school after graduating as valedictorian. She was a self-taught botanist, relying on botany manuals and local experience. She was known to wander the Rocky Mountains by herself looking for specimens, including climbing Mount Whitney. In 1891, her specimen collection was reviewed by the California Academy of Sciences, and she was hired to assist in the CAS’s Herbarium, being promoted to joint-curator in 1892. During her life she published over 310 scientific articles, and authored 395 land plant species names.  She strongly advocated that local American flora should be preserved, and protected against disappearance or natural disasters. There are currently 17 recognized species named for her. She was also well known for her disregard of social convention, especially on how a lady should dress, and in her degree of candor. 

The Drink:

A Cure for What Ails You
2 1/2 oz mead
1 1/2 oz ginger beer
1 oz lemon juice

Drinkability: 3 - 4
Drunkability: 3
Accessibility: 3
Taxic Diversity: 3
Priority for Conservation: 3 - 4

Comments: Opinions differed depending on how well you like spicy ginger beer. 

From "Women in Conservation" hosted by Alabazam and Boiler Maker

September, 2018 - Ellen Richards - Mead-Hattan

Ellen Swallow Richards (1842-1911) 

Born in Dunstable, MA, an only child, and was home schooled until the family moved to Westford in 1859. Her gift with Latin, French, and German made her in demand and allowed her to further her studies. She enrolled at Vassar College as a “special student” in 1868, graduating 2 years later with her bachelors, followed by a Masters by 1870. She was the one of the first women to break into the world of chemistry, and the first woman to attend MIT. She also worked as an unpaid chemistry lecturer at MIT from 1873-1878. Her passion became environmental nutrition and clean water, gathering 40,000 samples to study water quality in Massachusetts. This led to the development of the “Richards’ Normal Chlorine Map” which was predictive of inland water pollution in MA. She fought continually not only for water purity and her “humanist ecologist” cause, but for women’s equality, arguing that women’s unpaid labor in the home was the foundation of their second-class status and what kept modern capitalism in motion

The Drink

Mead-hattan
2 oz rye
2 oz cyser (a mead made with apple juice, a kind of half-mead/half-cider)
dash orange bitters

Drinkability: 2
Drunkability: 5
Accessibility: 2
Taxic Diversity: 2
Priority for Conservation: 5 

Comments: President and Secretary agree that for a Manhattan, it's a 5+, Opal Hush added a dash of leftover honey syrup to hers and said it was much more to her liking. 

From "Women in Conservation" hosted by Alabazam and Boiler Maker

September, 2018 - Florence Baily - Bramble Variation

Florence Augusta Merriam Baily (1863 – 1948)
Born in Locust Grove, NY, grew to became not only an ornithologist, and one of America’s first activists for the protection of birds, but also published the first bird field guide, Birds Through an Opera-Glass, published in 1890.  When she first started her study, the standards were based on collections of skins; but she wanted to study the living birds in the field. After college, she moved to Washington and helped organize the Audobon Society of D.C. in 1897, and began to teach classes on birds the following year.  Because of her activist work, she was also instrumental in the passing of the Lacey Act of 1900 that banned illegally traded wildlife to be sold across state lines. After marrying she would do extensive field work with her husband in the American West, and documented her studies in several books, including The Handbook of Birds of the Western United States and The Birds of New Mexico. In 1908, a subspecies of mountain chickadee was named in her honor; and in 1992, a mountain the southern Oregon Cascade Range was named in honor of both her and her husband by the Oregon Geographic Names Board.

The Drink

Bramble Variation
3 blackberries
1 oz gin
1 oz berry mead
3/4 oz lemon juice
3/4 oz honey syrup

Drinkability: 5
Drunkability: 3
Accessibility: 1
Taxic Diversity: 4
Priority for Conservation: 5

  Comments: "AZ, you'd better find more raspberry mead, because we're going to need more of this for the Christmas party." 

From "Women in Conservation" hosted by Alabazam and BoilerMaker