When researching this week’s sign and cocktail the immediate thought I got, reading about the Crab’s nurturing and protective nature, was of a lioness protecting her cub, or an angry momma-bear.
Maybe it should have been a little more Finding Nemo and less Jungle Book (we are dealing with a water sign, after all), but the comparison is still there. Cancerians are very protective of the siblings and friends. They sympathize and empathize with alacrity and are very intuitive beings. They’re not selfless, however, and feel their own emotions just as strongly as others (if not more so). Real or perceived slights are felt keenly and they can get into a righteous funk to end all funks and lay on the guilt trip with a single look or sigh.
Mood swings? Don’t mind if they do!
That said, they make great mentors or caregivers. I can see them being fabulous advocates for children or animal charities, very compassionate souls.
All this sensitivity wasn’t giving me much to go on, drink-wise, so I had to cast a wider-than-normal net for intel. That’s when I found Celestial Living Arts and their handful of articles about food and astrology (usually I just take my cues from Parker’s Encyclopedia of Astrology). For each sign they have a food avatar and Kataka (the Sanskrit name for Crab, whereas Cancer is the Latin) is represented by the watermelon.
Oh, hello, inspiration, how nice to see you again!
CLA related these two because of the high water content of the food. To me it screamed a “wave” of water-ocean-beach-sand-summer that is particularly fitting for our Crab friends, so watermelon would be a key flavor. But what else? For their delicate sensibilities, peach was another must-use (bruise like a peach?), either as nectar or schnapps, and then all we needed was a good base.
The Sensitive Soul
2 oz Green Tea
1 oz Watermelon Schnapps
1/2 oz Peach Schnapps
1/2 oz Simple Syrup
Combine all ingredients in a shaker over ice and shake, imagining yourself one of the ice cubes being tossed about violently, crashing into your fellow ice cubes. Feel terrible for the ice cubes and decide to make it as a stirred drink next time, explaining in detail why you’ve made the choice not to shake your cocktails  to anyone within earshot, because feelings can only be sufficiently felt if they are shared with others.
Either way, strain it into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a wedge of watermelon.
Tea, being mostly water, as well as a soothing drink on its own, seemed an appropriate base for this deep-feeling sign. When I drink it, I get the watermelon up front with a slight undercurrent of peach, while Todd tastes it just the opposite. In fact, this was one of Todd’s favorite cocktails to date. He’s a Pisces, maybe it’s a water-sign thing?