Monday, December 15, 2008

MxMo: The Coursing Sling



A previous bar I worked at had a very popular sage greyhound and since then the marriage of grapefruit and sage has been a favourite of mine. For this MxMo I wanted to do something along those lines and devised this:

Photobucket

The Coursing Sling

8 leaves of sage
1/4 oz. simple syrup
2 oz. Gin ( I used Cascade Mountain)
Juice of half a grapefruit
3 dashes peach bitters
Ginger beer

Gently bruise the sage and simple in the bottom of a pint, then add ice, bitters, grapefruit, and gin. shake and pour into a collins style glass. Add ginger beer to cover. Garnish with a sage sprig.

Modern greyhound racing has its origins in coursing. The first recorded attempt at racing greyhounds on a straight track was made beside the Welsh Harp reservoir, Hendon in 1876, but this experiment did not develop. The sport emerged in its recognizable modern form, featuring circular or oval tracks, with the invention of the mechanical or artificial hare in 1912 by Owen Patrick Smith. O.P. Smith had altruistic aims for the sport to stop the killing of the jack rabbits and see "greyhound racing as we see horse racing". The certificates system led the way to parimutuel betting, as quarry and on-course gambling, in the United States during the 1920s.
Coursing is the pursuit of game or other animals by dogs —chiefly Greyhounds and other sighthounds— catching the prey by speed, running by sight and not by scent. Coursing was a common hunting technique, practiced both by the nobility, the landed and wealthy, as well as commoners with sighthounds and Lurchers. In its oldest recorded form in the Western world, as described by Arrian the sport was practiced by all levels of society, as remained the case until Carolingian hunting law (Forest Law) appropriated hunting grounds, or commons, for the king, the nobility and other land owners.

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