This week’s drink is in honor of our decision to stick it out with this little plot of earth, regardless of what happens with the misplaced city pipe . My friend Dorothy made me laugh with a rousing version of Tammy Wynette’s lesser-known hit “Stand By Your Land.”

We planted a few trees this week and to me they’re more than just landscaping, they’re symbolic of our determination to see this project through. We’re digging in. We’re putting down roots.

The gin used in this cocktail comes from the Islay distillery Bruichladdich, which is best known for its scotch (though probably not as well-known as other Islay distilleries Laphroaig or Lagavulin). Of course the Scots know their scotch, but I was pleasantly surprised to find they know their way around a gin recipe too. According to their press, this gin is “crafted with 22 wild native Islay botanicals, hand-picked by our expert foraging team from the windswept hills, peat bogs and Atlantic shores of Islay…”

We might not have 22 botanicals, a peat bog, or the ocean where we want to build this home, but we have four new trees and the promise that one day we’ll have a house. We also have an advocate at the city – a person who is getting things done and making things happen – and we have a great team in the form of a builder, a project manager, and an architect guiding us. Traditionally, a tonic is something that invigorates or strengthens and I can’t think of a better tonic than this team around us.

The Botanist’s Tonic
Small bottle of tonic, splash of gin, squeeze of lime

Next week: what to drink when the brick manufacturer accidentally delivers a semi-trailer truck of brick to a work site with no house…