The scrutiny that members pay to their attire isn’t mere fussiness, Craddock says. Instead, it’s rooted in the idea that gentlemen ought to take pride in their appearance. As with other traditional observance lodges, Prometheus’s formality—evident in the lodge’s black-tie banquets and frequent ritual rehearsals—is what attracts new initiates to the lodge in the first place.

That said, Prometheus members don’t take themselves too seriously—not always, anyway.

Take the tartan, for instance. There’s nothing inherently Scottish about Prometheus No. 851, except perhaps its members’ passion for single malt. The idea for a lodge kilt surfaced years ago during a retreat at the historic Columbia Lodge in Gold Country. After the banquet, Wilkes walked outside and began playing the pipes, “to rouse everyone up and get them ready for scotch and cigars,” he says.

As Craddock remembers it, “The next thing we knew, there was this music coming from the dark streets. It was eerie and beautiful at the same time.” In years since, Wilkes repeated the evening serenade at the annual retreat, and members came to expect it—and, jokingly, to connect the lodge to all things Scottish. Finally, in 2019, lodge master Jordan Yelinek asked Wilkes, who holds the title of lodge pipe major, to design a custom lodge tartan. Wilkes went directly to Craddock, and the two put their heads together to create the Prometheus tartan, a criss-cross of black and orange striping (known as the warp and weft) against a field of light gray.

While covid-19 has slowed the tartan’s planned rollout, Craddock expects to see members don the Prometheus kilt and accompanying dress jacket by the end of the year. In the future, he says, the getup will serve as formal dress at lodge rituals, meetings, and banquets.