On Saturday, October 31, 2020, Father Michael J. McGivney, founder of the Knights of Columbus, will be beatified. To celebrate this event, I am pleased to announce the creation of a cocktail in Blessed Michael’s honor.

The Michael J

¾ oz Brady’s Irish Cream

½ oz Litchfield Straight Bourbon

1 oz Pallini Limoncello

Pour all ingredients into a shaker filled with ice and shake forty times. Strain into an old-fashioned glass filled with ice and garnish with a lemon twist and a small spoon, preferably brass.

This ultra smooth and almost frothy cocktail has three ingredients, one for Blessed Michael’s ancestral home, one for his adopted home, and one for his supernatural home.

Brady’s Irish Cream is from County Cavan, Ireland, where both of Michael’s parents were born. The distiller boasts of being “one of the oldest cream liqueur plants in the world,” so perhaps his mom and dad enjoyed a glass during their time in the old country. If you can’t find a bottle of Brady’s at your neighborhood liquor store, Blessed Michael won’t mind if you substitute Bailey’s or some other brand.

Blessed Michael was born in Waterbury, CT, served as a priest in New Haven, and died in Thomaston. Thomaston is located in Litchfield County, home of Litchfield Distillery: their award-winning Straight Bourbon Whiskey is 92 proof, so if you need to find a substitute, be sure to use something similarly strong. Jim Beam Devil’s Cut bourbon, for example, is 90 proof and would be an appropriate way to make Old Scratch pay his respects to the new Blessed.

And Blessed Michael’s supernatural home, of course, is Heaven, but it is also his membership in the Catholic Church to which he remained loyal and true in face of persistent anti-Catholic prejudice. We can honor Michael’s fidelity to the Church of Rome with Pallini limoncello, made by a family-owned business from the Eternal City.

Oh. And the spoon betokens Father Michael’s boyhood job making spoons in a brass mill.