Soda Soda Tangerine Mojo #31 2009

Soda Soda Tangerine Mojo #31

Friday, February 13, 2009:

In an effort to get back to the ultimate grassroots brewing I have decided to take my neighbor Pat’s tangerine tree hostage. Actually, the truth is that Pat is a really great guy but he just doesn’t like to pick fruit, which is a terrible shame for him because he happens to own a tangerine tree twenty feet tall that contains some of the best juicers this side of the State. In order to feed my brewing habit and create a symbiotic relationship with Pat I have volunteered to pick his tree clean.
Try picking twenty gallons of tangerines by hand with your wife standing in the driveway laughing at you. After my first bucket I climbed up the center of the tree, grabbed it with both hands and shook like hell, hundreds of beautiful fruit falling gently to the grass and a look of awe from Leah. Without batting an eye she looks at her friend DJ and tells her “ I bet he was thinking of me when he did that just then”. The truth is that I never would think of something as violent as throttling my lovely wife but I thought it was funny, too!
Seventeen gallons of fruit later and I found myself juicing like a madman in the kitchen. By the time my sissy boy juicer gave out I had about five and a half gallons, with which I also added one pint of Boston Hill Wildflower Honey, four pounds of sugar (simplified) and tossed in two packets of Pasteur Champagne yeast, pushing the airlock on and sending to my closet for a couple of weeks.

There is also a story behind the name, Soda Soda Tangerine Mojo. It just so happens that one day when I was a young and stupid Marine in the Philippines we had staged all of our amphibious vehicles in a bayside submarine base called Subic. While pulling maintenance duty one afternoon there was this little Philipino fella that kept coming by with a wheelbarrow full of Coke, Pepsi and ice, yelling “Soda, Soda. Soda Soda!” It was a wonderful song that kept in my head all of these years.
Oh, and also, one of the staple drinks at the time on McSai-Sai Boulevard was the mojo, some violently wonderful cocktail comprised of local fruit and rum and/or vodka or miscellaneous alcohol, whatever was available. A few glasses and you were schnokerred to the point of stumblization, especially if you were a twenty one year old who was just getting off a boat after two months.
This will be my version of mojo, in honor of a Philippino dude who sang a song that stayed with me my whole life and a long gone place that created a fantastic Island drink that was just as memorable.
I will keep you posted when it goes in the bottle!