Three Ways to Pine for Zirbenschnaps

By

Michael Pabich

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Volume 01, Identity & Intersection •
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Austrian pine trees used to make Zirbenschnaps
Photo credit: Kristaps Ungurs | Unsplash

​The scent of pine trees is a time machine, a brusque mix of barbed, balsamic beauty. I have a million pine memories. One good whiff and I’m transported home, sap streaking the inside of my scraped arms as I scale the tall white pine in our neighbor’s backyard, lunchbox dangling from the rear belt loop of my short pants. Lost in a cross-hatching of aromatic needles. I’m in the warming house of the town rink, my toes aching with cold. Silhouetted skaters float and spin on the bumpy ice outside. A pine fire acrid with resin heaves black smoke up…

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Writer, educator

Michael Pabich grew up among second-generation Germans and Poles in northern Wisconsin. Mike has a Masters in fiction writing, and a Masters in English education. He’s taught writing for almost thirty years, at college, in high school, and in Taiwanese bushiban. Over the course of his 30-year ramblings he's explored first beer and then spirits, discovering great cocktails in the supper clubs of northern Wisconsin; in Taipei, Hong Kong, London, Berlin, Paris, and most of America's large cities. Mike currently resides near Washington DC, with a brilliant partner named Beth, two thoughtful and generous sons, and two frankly sub-par cats.

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