Gold Rush

Tailgating, rock-loving stoners create a bourbon classic

By Linda R.R. Seiberling

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio • March 3, 1977 — Mike Hoorzle banged his knee on the corner of the kitchen cabinet as he ran toward the refrigerator. 

“Motherf…” 

He didn’t even have time to finish swearing. He had 10 minutes between getting home from intramural karate practice and leaving for the show. And he still had to pick up Driscoll. 

If it was possible, Driscoll was an even bigger Rush fan than Mike was. Driscoll had actually seen them live in 1975. That was the year Mike had discovered “Fly By Night.” The next year, he waited outside Neptune’s! record store before it opened to buy “2112” the day it came out. 

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Gold Rush 

2 ounces bourbon

¾ ounce fresh lemon juice

¾ ounce honey syrup

Shake with ice and strain into a rocks glass over a single large ice cube 

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Mike memorized the album’s lyrics within a week. He and Driscoll had long debates on the school bus about whether Part II of the title track, “The Temples of Syrinx,” was stronger (it was) than Part V, “Oracle: The Dream” (of course not). 

Rush’s music was his music. It wasn’t handed down to him by his parents or older sister. The band was a brick in something new he was building as he left childhood behind.

In two years Mike had gone from Rush fan to Rush freak. In the three months since the band released its latest album, “A Farewell to Kings,” he and Driscoll had spent hours smoking joints after school and debating what the king on the album’s cover, sitting (dead?) in ruins meant. 

Mike argued that because the puppet king looked like Johnny Rotten, Rush was saying punk was a crass record company creation and that its brief time in the spotlight was over. Driscoll thought it was about “how rich people and the rest of us—their puppets—were living together in the ruins of Jimmy Carter’s bullshit version of America.”

Mike threw some peanut butter, bread and a knife in a backpack. He couldn’t find any jelly so he grabbed some honey instead. He knew he was out of rolling papers, and there were no apples around, so he reached for any roundish fruit from the bowl on the kitchen table and threw it in the backpack. They’d be smoking out of lemons. Finally, as he ran out the door to head to Driscoll’s, he took a dusty bottle of Ancient Age bourbon from his parents bar.

Mike pulled up in his mom’s Ford Falcon and honked for Driscoll. He lit a joint and turned up the radio. “The Wizard!” Driscoll said when he got in, taking the joint from Mike. The Wizard, WSRD 101.1 FM, was the best radio station in Youngstown, and Mike was pretty sure they’d be playing Rush while he and Driscoll partied before the show. Driscoll brought five beers, but no rolling papers. 

“I brought lemons,” Mike told him.

“We’re smoking weed out of a lemon,” Driscoll said, sorta proud.

The Tomorrow Club parking lot was jammed with Rush tailgaters. As Mike predicted, The Wizard was, indeed, playing a Rock Block of Rush for the two hours leading up to the show. Mike and Driscoll each chugged a Schlitz, cranked up the volume when “Closer to the Heart” came on, and got out of the Falcon to check out the Rush lady fans. 

When the last beer was gone, Mike, super high, took the Ancient Age from his backpack and poured a glug in his empty Schlitz can. He remembered the lemons. He cut one in half, squeezed it into the bourbon and shook it around a little. He took a swig and spit it out. 

Driscoll was sitting cross-legged on the hood of the Falcon making a peanut butter and honey sandwich. “Not great?” he asked.

“Hand me the honey,” Mike said. He poured a little into the beer can and swished it around. “Whoa, this is good. But it needs to be cold.”

Just then, a tall guy with a mustache stopped at the Falcon. “Overheard you need some ice,” the guy said. He was wearing enormous aviator shades and wore a Blue Jays baseball hat. “I’ll trade you some ice for a beer.”

“Outta beer,” Driscoll said. “But we can give you some bourbon and a hit out of a lemon.”

“Deal,” the guy said. He put down his backpack, which was, indeed filled with ice. Mike borrowed a plastic cup from the car next to them and filled it with a combination of bourbon, lemon juice and honey.

“You guys big fans?” the guy asked, as Mike stirred the concoction. 

“Real big fans,” said Driscoll. The guy lit up a weed lemon as Mike began telling him about their “A Farewell To Kings” album cover theories. Mike split the cold drink into three empty Schlitz cans and handed them to Driscoll and the Blue Jays guy. They all took a swig. 

“Wow - you’ve got a talent, man,” the guy said. 

“Mike, this is good! Make some more.”

“Yeah, I’ll take another,” the guy said. “By the way, this band is a bunch of ding dongs. Their music is silly.”

There was a shocked pause before Mike and Driscoll started in on him. “Silly!” Mike poured more of the bourbon concoction into the guy’s beer can. “They’re the best band in the world!” For 10 minutes Mike and Driscoll one-upped each other about the greatness of Rush’s music as the guy smiled, drank his drink, trashed Rush, and smoked from a lemon. 

A huge bus rolled up and stopped next to the Falcon. 

“That’s me,” the guy said. “Gotta roll. Thanks for the drinks. Keep the ice.”

He boarded the bus as Mike and Driscoll looked at each other, high and confused. Then a window opened on the bus, and the Blue Jays guy reached a drumstick out the window, two gold passes hanging from it.

“See you backstage after the show, friends,” he said. “Bring more of that whiskey shit.”

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Editor’s Note: Fact-based cocktail historians claim the Gold Rush was created at Milk & Honey in New York City by T.J. Siegal in 2001

SOURCES:

• Neil Peart, Getting High In Parking Lots with Fans of My Band (Toronto: Gilded Cage Press, 1990) p. 76

• Brett Harkleeth, “Area Teens Give Stolen Bourbon To Canadian Rock Band,” The Vindicator (December 6, 1977): A1

• Marscha Lane McWriggle, “Chapter 6: Fruit Vessels,” in All Of Life’s Myriad and Wonderful Ways of Smoking Dope, ed. Karsons Daklonz (Eureka: 420 and Company, 2002) p. 119

Contributors Notes:

Linda R.R. Seiberling is the editor of “Dust Meat.” She is currently translating stories from the Estonian by Tõna Õttintät. She lives in her condominium complex. 

Next week: Corpse Reviver #2 • An occult splinter group discovers a magick potion