We deeply love Pixie Colman Smith‘s iconic artwork for the Rider-Waite Deck, but we want to see a more inclusive and dreamy take on those illustrations. We are thrilled have put this in the genius hands of phenomenal illustrator Cindy Fan. Cindy is doing her own version of the Major Arcana that will appear alongside the drink recipes in the book. Those illustrations will also be printed as a standalone deck of the Major Arcana cards. (I’ve been thinking of it as the CINDY X PIXIE deck.) Sober Witch Maranda Elizabeth is our Tarot Consultant!
We are also delighted to have Yuliya Tsoy doing illustrations in the book of the drinks themselves! Yuliya’s blend of precision and whimsy is exactly what this project needs.
A year and a half ago, I (Audra Williams, noted online emoter and lifelong non-drinker) fell in love with a bartender (Haritha Gnanaratna, fastidious drink inventor and infrequent drink-drinker).
On our third date, I asked him “Do you think cocktails need alcohol in them?” He looked off into space for a few minutes and replied no. Six weeks later, we launched our non-alcoholic beverage company, Temperance Cocktails.
The night that we launched our company, I impulsively named all of our menu offerings on Wes Anderson movies. I saw what a fun entry point it gave people to try the drink equivalent of The Darjeeling Limited, or Moonrise Kingdom.
I realized that part of the appeal of cocktail culture are the stories connected with certain drinks. So I wanted to find a way to map a compelling narrative onto drinks that didn’t have any alcohol in them. I chose the Tarot which has the benefit of being both having a zeitgeist moment and a mystical 500-year history of shaping narrative.
Temperance Cocktails are presently being bottled one at a time in a shared community kitchen. We are nowhere near being able to supply the whole planet with non-alcoholic drinks — though we’d like to get there. Until then, we are making this recipe book with the help of a lot of rad people. Look at our chipper faces and learn more about us below!
We feel very confident that we will have no trouble completing this project if funded. We have quotes from several printers, have checked and re-checked shipping rates around the world, and really have curated a rad group of over-achievers to help us make this happen.
Something like illness, injury, or other emergency could get us behind schedule. If that happens, we will let all of our supporters know right away. We will be transparent throughout the project, and welcome questions or comments at any time!