The view - or "view" - from my hotel window in Detroit this evening. It is wet. And that, without giving the matter any further consideration, is why I went to the bar and ate there (very good - the Detroit Foundation Hotel, since you ask - much recommended. It's been converted from the old Fire Station).
But here's a real puzzle. This was a Ruth Ellis Martini (also much recommended). But why would you name a cocktail (vodka, lychee, agave, lime) after Ruth Ellis?? She was a former night club hostess who was the last woman in England to be hanged - in 1955 - for the murder of her lover, David Blakely, a racing car driver. Is it the car connection? Or ...
... is it that the connotations of notoriety that the name "Ruth Ellis" carries for me aren't appropriate to Detroit? I've dug around a bit more, and surely this quite delicious drink was in fact named after the Ruth Ellis who was an out lesbian since ... when? 1915? She met her life partner, Ceciline "Babe" Franklin in the 1920s, and they moved to Detroit in 1937, where hers became the first woman-owned printing shop in Michigan - and their house became a gathering place for African American gays and lesbians. The Ruth Ellis center today is a resource for unhoused LGBT youth. She sounds like a wonderful woman, and absolutely not to be confused with a murderer, and I wish I'd known this while I was drinking that martini - I'd have toasted her memory.
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