CULLMAN, Ala. – The night came on, as November nights do, cold and early and quiet. Inside Jubilee Kitchen + Bar, the candles were already lit.
Tall tapers flickered against dark walls. Deep crimson cloth pooled across the tables like spilled wine, and a single red rose waited beside each small glass vase. At the bar, beneath a chandelier glowing like a cluster of pale moons, cocktails with names borrowed from the grave were shaken and poured.
And then, as the hour of six drew near, the room fell still, and the voice of Edgar Allan Poe returned to the living.
Jubilee and the Cullman County Public Library joined forces Monday, Nov. 2, for “An Evening with Poe,” a night of cocktails and dramatic readings celebrating the 19th-century master of mystery and the macabre. Guests gathered for a cocktail hour at 5 p.m. before readings began at 6.
Even the drinks were steeped in dread. Jubilee’s “An Evening with Poe” specials menu, marked with a perched raven, offered five cocktails inspired by the author’s darkest works:
- The Black Cat: vodka, chocolate liqueur, cherry and heavy cream
- The Raven: blanco tequila, Cointreau, blackberry and lime
- The Pale Blue Eye: gin, elderflower liqueur, lemon and simple syrup
- The Nevermore: cherry-smoked whiskey with lemon and lime
- The Midnight Dreary: vodka, espresso, Kahlúa, Baileys and chocolate
Cullman County Public Library Assistant Director Shelby Creekmore opened the evening by thanking guests and Jubilee for hosting a program the library had been dreaming up for some time.
“We’re very excited that you all can get to hear some very fun stories tonight,” she said, before promising a few spooky ones as well.
Creekmore also invited guests to help write the library’s own next chapter. The library recently launched Every Chapter Matters, a yearlong capital campaign to renovate and expand its main building, and is asking residents to take a community survey sharing how they use the library and what they would like to see in the new building.
Before the first story was read, Ben Johnson South stepped to the podium in a bow tie to introduce the man behind the macabre.
Poe, he told the crowd, was born into a theatrical family, the son of traveling actors, and was orphaned as a young child. Raised by family in Richmond, Virginia, he spent a single year at the University of Virginia before gambling debts ended his studies, and a brief stint as a cadet at West Point fared no better. He married his young cousin, Virginia, whose death from illness haunted much of his work, and he died in Baltimore in 1849 under circumstances that remain a mystery to this day.
Between the sorrows, South lightened the mood with a few groan-worthy “dad jokes,” including why Poe never needed a GPS: he simply followed his dark instincts.
Then, as the laughter faded, the readings began.
From a lone podium, lit softly against the shadows, readers brought four of Poe’s most famous works to life, beginning with “The Black Cat.”
There was “The Tell-Tale Heart,” in which a narrator swears he is not mad, even as a heart beats louder and louder beneath the floorboards. There was “The Raven,” Poe’s 1845 poem of grief and a midnight visitor who answers every plea with a single word. There was “The Black Cat,” a tale of guilt that will not stay buried. And there was “The Cask of Amontillado,” a story of revenge carried out, brick by brick, in the catacombs.
Guests listened from their candlelit tables, glasses in hand, as the stories crept through the room one by one.
The evening found a fitting stage in Jubilee, a locally owned restaurant and bar on the ground floor of the historic Flying Fifty Hotel in downtown Cullman. The sister company of Karma’s Coffee House, Jubilee describes itself as “a gathering place for friends, family, and neighbors.” Jubilee is owned by Katie Fine, and its kitchen is led by Executive Chef Becky Watkins.
For the Cullman County Public Library, the night carried its love of stories beyond the library’s walls and into one of downtown’s gathering spots, proof that a good tale, told well, can still make a room hold its breath.
Coming just after Halloween, the evening offered Cullman one last shiver of the season. And as guests stepped back out into the November dark, more than a few may have glanced over their shoulders, listening for a tapping, gently rapping, somewhere in the night.
To learn about upcoming events, follow Facebook/Jubilee Kitchen and Bar and www.facebook.com/cullmancountypubliclibrarysystem, or visit www.jubileekitchenandbar.com and www.cullmanlib.org.
