A Long Island Walpurgisnacht!

About author / Josh Gunn

Bachelor chef; southern cooking; mixologist; university professor. Josh's recipes will delight (and sometimes terrify) you.

Tomorrow the evils of Winter are conquered by Spring--but not before the custodians of that dark season have a little fun! The eve of May Day is the official evening of revelry for witches and the workers of the world, also known as Walpurgisnacht or the Night of Walpurgis. According to Goethe's Faust, legend has it that on Walpurgisnacht witches would congregate on the peaks of the Harz Mountains and party down, kiss up to the Devil, and renew their pacts.

Now, the name of the holiday is derived from Saint Walpurga, a nun who died in Germany in 779. The actual holiday, however, is a pagan one that we can trace to the Norse tradition of celebrating Odin's death with large bonfires that were thought to scare away spirits of the undead. As with Halloween, the thought here is that on Walpurgis Night the barrier between the living and the dead is compromised, and so travel between the spirit and flesh worlds is possible. In Germany the holiday is celebrated as the time when witches assemble on the Brocken or Blocksberg to do all things witchy.

In honor of witches and workers everywhere, I've been throwing a May Day/Walpurgisnacht party for a decade. I started throwing this party in grad school and some pretty wicked things happened at these parties. Part of the wickedness can be traced to the beverage I always serve at this party: the Long Island Iced Tea. As readers might suspect, today my parties are a lot less "wild" (we gave up spin the bottle at least five years ago), but we still have live DJs and dancing!

Now, the experts on the Tubes tell us that the Long Island Iced Tea was invented by some Bartending Butt (that's his real last name, I'm not just being a butt) in Long Island in the 1970s. What's important to mention here, however, is that the drink likely got its name from its look and appearance: it looks like iced tea, and if made correctly, it sort of tastes like iced tea too. In fact, people who insist they cannot stand the taste of alcohol can often tolerate a Long Island Iced Tea. The irony is that Long Islands are high in alcohol content, so that if you give a person who normally does not drink a Long Island, they'll be three sheets to the wind in a half-hour. Regardless, I've discovered this particular drink is a real party-pleaser so I continue to serve it every year.

For my Walpurgis Night party I pre-mix the Long Islands except for the cola. I spend about $100 on the alcohol, and usually don't have any or very much of it left after the party (think about 30 people or so over the course of the evening). I have this pre-mixed stuff in pitchers in the fridge, and then serve it by adding the cola at the very end. Once the stuff is premixed most party goers can figure out how to make the drink themselves. Alternately, you can make a sign in your kitchen with directions, which sometimes comes in handy when someone is on their third drink and "forgets" what to do.

Serves/Makes: 2

• 1 cup cola
• 1/2 cup sweet and sour mix
• 2 tablespoons gin
• 2 tablespoons vodka
• 2 tablespoons light rum
• 2 tablespoons tequila
• 2 tablespoons triple sec
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 3 cups crushed ice