Ingredients
1.0 fluid ounces Wild Turkey 101 Bourbon Whiskey
1.0 fluid ounces Jägermeister
6.0-12.0 fluid ounces IPA
2 dashes Angostura Aromatic Bitters
1 Lime wedge
Garnish
Lime wedge (squeezed)
Glass
Red Solo Cup
Method
- Squeeze the juice of 1 lime wedge and then drop the spent wedge into the red Solo cup.
- Add 2 dashes Angostura Aromatic Bitters to the mixture.
- Add 1.0 ounce Wild Turkey 101 Bourbon Whiskey and 1.0 ounce Jägermeister. Swirl contents vigorously.
- Pour a volume (to taste) of IPA into the red Solo cup in such a way that all the ingredients mix together.
The Story
Deer Camp draws its inspiration from the eponymous seasonal hunting communities in the Adirondacks. In their purest form, they are the domain of men. There’s no way around it. Moreover, I make no apology for personally avowing deer camp culture as received.
Misogynist.
Huh?
You dislike women.
No, I don’t.
Oh yes, you do.
Hey, I love women – the way they walk and talk ,
their hair and perfume. They can do things men fumble at.
Then you’re a cad.
No, I’m not. I’m straight-edge.
And obviously sexist.
What?
Sexist.
Not at all: I believe the human female is the most
interesting feature of the Universe. I mean that, and
not in a condescending way either. I’m sincere.
Of course, the testosterone.
That’s certainly part of it. But it’s more than physical.
It’s how women think and behave.
Why a guy wouldn’t enjoy being around them is beyond me.
You go to college? That’s how you talk.
Yeah, RPI. I majored in chemistry, minored in ice hockey. And you?
Smith.
You’re sharp then.
What do you mean by ‘sharp?’
Smart. You must be. Smith’s the first of Seven Sisters…
The Pleiades – companions of Artemis – Goddess of the Hunt.
Bothers you?
That you’re intelligent?
That there’s a goddess of hunting.
Not if she’s a bombshell!
Sexist! Answer the question.
Did she go to Smith?
Answer the question!
Fine, I love femininity, especially in terms of the hunt,
or maybe the other way around. Take fly-angling.
Which is fishing.
Which is a form of hunting. Men, when casting – it’s all power.
Women have a certain…You know.
No. I don’t.
A certain ‘Je ne sais quoi.’
Are you married?
No.
Dating?
Are you flirting with me?
Of course not!
That’s a relief. You had me worried.
Here I am 25. Your about twice my––
I’m 38!
Intellectual age. You cut me off.
But where’s this going? What’s your point?
Women belong at deer camp’s my point.
Then start one. Get a group together.
And make a rule: Ladies Only.
You said we “can do things men fumble at.”
Yeah, and I’ll go further, too.
I think a woman is sacrosanct. A man is not.
He’s to take outrageous slings and arrows.
Since when?
Since now. But look, that alone is cause for men to have a place,
a retreat, like deer camp. Don’t you think?
I think you’re offensive.
Fine, but I think forcing the sexes to be the same is boring.
And it causes us to view women as inferior men,
or men as inferior women. Moreover, this so called battle
between us is false. It’s a distortion that makes as much sense
as a battle within the individual between the hemispheres
of his brain. It even negates beauty.
What do you mean?
I tell you what I mean, but you first have
to tell me if you know what beauty is. Can you define it?
Beauty is whatever you want it to be.
And you really believe that?
I can collect the evening’s bar waste,
rap it up, call it beautiful,
and that makes it beautiful?
Okay, you tell me. What is beauty?
It’s unity in variety and variety in unity,
with all elements fittingly in proportion.
Who says?
I think many before me have defined beauty as that.
But if not, then I think it’s still obviously true.
It’s something we know intuitively.
You think? What was it you said earlier?
That what I’m asking for “negates beauty.”
I don’t get it.
In other words, for beauty to exist, there has to be unity.
But unity necessitates that there also must be distinction.
Otherwise, there’s nothing to unify.
You say you’re 25, but you don’t talk like it.
I can’t decide if you’re professorial or stuffy.
Well, I am Old School…brings me back to topic.
The tradition of deer camp began in the Northeast and upper-Midwest in the 1930s in response to the return of the whitetail deer to much of its northern range – defined by its geographic distribution at the time of European settlement – as a consequence of game laws passed at the request of sportsmen in the first decades of the 20th Century. A second contributing factor in New England and parts of New York, starting around 1890, was the abandonment of farms. This left a patch-work of early successional woodland, open field, orchard, and scrub at the landscape scale that was ideal whitetail habitat and Bambi responded accordingly.1
While the 1930s and 1940s were the induction years, deer camp tradition reached full-stride in the 1950s, of which the Winchester advertising art you see here is representative. The reason why is that the Greatest Generation, at mid-20th Century, was settling into a life of relative peace and prosperity after weathering the Great Depression and winning the Big One. Having a sporting lodge or something like it, therefore, was now a pleasure the masses could afford.
And the masses loved it. Some still do. Yet as an institution today, it is waning for a variety of reasons. Those most commonly given are the same ones for the current decline with respect to fieldsports participation in general. These include the fission of the nuclear family, the transience of society today (Compared to other cultures, Americans move away from family and friends, weakening all social bonds in the process, with alarming alacrity.), and the atomization of the whole of life as a consequence of technology, but namely the internet.
A Deer Camp Celebration…
I only know his first name (Paul), but the way he see’s things, I swear we were separated at birth. Anyhow, this video of his about the allure of Deer Camp and its current decline is insightful. I even told him so in the Comments section below it. At the time of writing, mine is the twelfth from the top.
And Lament
Now, I have a naturally sunny disposition, and so no more talk of decline. Not that I’ve never been down. I’ll concede that 2020 was a hard one. But a cocktail begs for looking on the bright side. And this time it’s that deer camp remains alive. God bless it, too. Moreover, if it’s still kickin’, then it can prosper once again. Therefore––
A hallmark feature of deer camp tradition was and is its easy-going conviviality. Embodying that spirit, the cocktail Deer Camp is designed to be not only straightforward to make, but also to be served in a red Solo cup (I lift you up!). Because it’s your friend…life-long.
So to my hunting buddies, good luck to all of you this season. May buck poles everywhere buckle under the weight! Yet, be sure to give Deer Camp a try one evening while you’re playing 7-card stud – just like in the old days. It might even take the edge off the stench that’s building in the barracks. And oh, I almost forgot: Keeping conversation clean, keeps Confession light.
Article 1 Introduction
Article 2 Ecclesial Postmodernism
Article 3 Men
Article 4 The Odds
Article 5 Argument from Beauty
Article 6 The Trinity in the Taconics
Article 7 Not By Spirit Alone
Article 8 A Tough Sell
Article 9 A Tight Fix
Article 10 Catch More Fish!
Fieldsports and The Faith Vignettes
- Severinghaus, C. W., Brown, C. P. “History of the White-Tailed Deer in New York,” New York Fish and Game Journal, Vol. 3, No. 2, July 1956. ↩︎