Booze

[poliphilo]

I used to like a glass of wine. With a meal. If I was cooking.  Not any more. These days I reach for the lemonade. 

We were out to dinner at a very fine restaurant the other night. Some of the party were drinking wine but I was happy with iced water. Ailz ordered a cider and shared some of the bottle with me. I didn't particularly want her to.

Non-alcoholic apple juice would have been just as nice. No- nicer. 

The change has come about gradually, without incident, over- say- the last 6 months. 

(I'm not going teetotal. This isn't about ideology. Well, maybe a teensy-weensy bit. I've never liked pubs and I'm a bit old-maidish around the alcohol culture. I've just been reading about Dylan Thomas. What a tiresome man! How I'd have hated him!)

Children rarely like the taste of alcohol. They have to be taught - conditioned- broken in.  Between 16 and 56 I was under the impression I enjoyed the stuff. I wonder if I ever really did.  Now that I'm approaching my second childhood- and no longer under pressure to impress and compete with other adults- I can say what I really think.

It tastes horrid and makes me feel poorly.

Take the nasty stuff away.

Comments

[dadi.livejournal.com]

I never understood the whole thing. Neither the "getting drunk" stuff - how can something which makes your head ache and your stomach revolt be FUN??? - nor the "taste". For me, alcohol usually spoils the taste of what I am eating. I will make exceptions, very seldom, for a cool beer, but that too I can't remind when I did it last. Gimme lemonade, ice tea or fruit juices any time, or just plain water.. that is a lot more pleasure!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I got really, really drunk a few times in my youth- and ever since I've tried to avoid the experience. It isn't pleasant. It isn't clever.

I agree about the cool beer. Occasionally that hits the spot.

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

I find it amusing you both refer to it as a "cool" beer. I suppose my preference for a beer that's at least colder than room temperature springs from living in a desert, but it's also typically American. Took me a long time to understand that ales, English ones especially, are meant to be cool, and not so cold that ice crystals form in it.

I've heard that Budweiser is rather popular in Europe (God knows why) - is it also served cool?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

If I'm drinking beer I go (whenever possible) for the product of local small breweries. Incidentally, the best beer I've ever had is the home-brew my mother used to make.

The success of Bud is presumably down to advertising, product placement and the perceived "coolness" of all things American. I don't think I've ever drunk it myself (except- perhaps- on visits to the States) but I believe European venues store it in the ice box.

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

It's not available here in Estonia. We wouldn't drink that cow p--ss. Although we do drink the Czech original Budvar.

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

I may slowly be getting there. I've never liked hard alcohol, but do enjoy beer and wine. It's rare, however, when my enjoyment of it overrides the thought of how I'll feel the next morning if I have too much, and so the nights I'll have more than three drinks (usually spread out over three hours with a lot of water in between) are becoming fewer and fewer in number.

And I agree about alcohol culture, particularly so since I live in a university town. It's just not my scene anymore, and I feel a bit foolish anymore when I'm immersed in it. These days I limit my drinking to home, or restaurants.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I suppose there's a sort of grace to being "stoned, immaculate"- but I've always preferred to keep my wits about me.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on this one.
Back when I was trying to "enjoy" drinking, I was not interested in the taste, just the effect. When I wanted something that tasted good, I would have a soda, or iced tea, or lemonade, anything but alcoholic drinks. Today, my cocktail of choice is club soda with a twist of lime. It tastes good, not sweet at all, and does not give a hangover or result in loss of control.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I favour "traditional" lemonade- made with real (or at least concentrate) fruit juice. It's refreshing, thirst-quenching and gives me as much of a lift as I ever find I need.

And then there's tea- "the cup that cheers".

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

I love good wine, especially red wines. I like to collect them and taste them and share them with friends. I like all the subtle flavors and scents and the alchemy that goes into making them. I've never drank to get drunk- I think that my parents innoculated my sister and I against that sort of binge drinking by permitting us to have diluted wine and sips of beer as children. The drinks were for grown-ups, and we were delighted to be allowed to have a taste. When we in turn grew up, wine and beer was not such a big deal.

It was to our peers, though- in a state where such things were considered forbidden, 'sinful' and therefore desirable, many of my peers snuck alcohol and binged on it. This continued well into college- or the military. When I got to tech school in Biloxi, MS. most of my peers wanted to go get drunk the first chance they got. I wanted to go see the new Star Trek movie. I never got into drinking to get drunk, which seems to be a scourge of youth.

(My brother was not given the same gradual exposure and attention to his consumption of alcohol, and became an alcoholic. The gradual exposure technique does work.)

There is a recent trend- and an unfortunate one, to us oenophiles- of boosting the alcohol content in wines. (This might be why you don't enjoy it as much.) Some of these newer wines have much higher alcohol content than traditional wines, and that alcohol masks poor craftsmanship. These are not what Brits would call 'cheap plonk' wines- these are winemakers who ought to know better, and who are sheep following a unhappy trend. Hopefully, they'll start easing back. I drink the wine for the flavor, not the alcohol.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I can't explain what's happened. We used to buy wine by the case. I was never a oenophile, but I thought I could recognise quality when I sipped it.

My parents had the same sort of policy. As we moved into our teens, my sister and I were allowed to drink moderate ammounts of alcohol at home- so it never became a big thing to us. I went on one or two famous drunks as a kid- and quickly decided it wasn't much fun.

Maybe you're right about the added alcohol. Over the past five years or so I've moved from drinking mainly red to mainly white to mainly nothing at all.

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

It's not only the higher alcohol content - which you can read on the label, its the added sulfites as well as the pesticide residues that make their way into the wine. I love good wines and will have a glass or 2 of good wine with a fine meal, but am not interested in drinking to excess. Recently, because I have been working in an Organic foods restaurant, I have had the chance to sample organically produced wines and they do - in moderation - make for a happier morning after.

[caorunn.livejournal.com]

I've never liked alcohol either, even when I was drinking bucketloads of it when I was in my late teens/early twenties. I probably drank more to get drunk so I couldn't taste it.

Never touch it now, I just don't see the point in drinking something I don't like in order to please someone else.

:)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

"I just don't see the point in drinking something I don't like in order to please someone else."

Exactly.

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

Ah...yes. I've never been a huge drinker and both Manolo and I are beer and wine people when we do drink, which is much less than even a year ago. I like beer very much but have become much pickier than I used to and like the production of smaller breweries rather than the commercial stuff. And what can I say about wine? Spain is a wine culture and we love a good Rioja or Priorat. Besides, Manolo's cardiologist recommends a glass a day to raise good cholesterol and lower bad among other benefits. How can we not follow doctor's orders?

*chuckle*

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

If I'm going to drink beer I always (where possible) opt for the product of small breweries. So much more flavour!

[mummm.livejournal.com]

I've never smoked, nor have I ever had much to drink. When in college my friends really thought I was a *stick-in-the-mud*. I'm very much anti-smoking, but I don't mind if people drink... though alcoholism is scary. I just never much wanted to drink. I do, though, on rare occasions, such as celebrations, and then I only drink things that taste okay to me. (mostly fruit based...) I'll drink some wine on those occasions... but I could easily go without.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Smoking baffles me. Cigarettes taste foul, make you cough and are very, very bad for your health. Why would anyone ever start?

[mummm.livejournal.com]

Because, for a while, smoking made you *part of the crowd* I guess? Kids now seem to start up smoking as a form of rebellion, and then they get hooked.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's very true.

I never was (and never cared to be) one of the "in" crowd.

[mummm.livejournal.com]

Me either, luckily!

[red-girl-42.livejournal.com]

Well, I'll be the oddball in the group--I usually am!

I do like the taste of alcohol. I like beer the best, but I also enjoy mixed drinks. I've never been a fan of wine. It tastes okay, but it makes me feel groggy and gives me a headache. No fun.

I have liked the taste of beer since childhood. For as long as I can remember, I was asking my dad for sips of his beer, just for the flavor. My son used to like taking a sip of my beer, too, when he was younger. Then in school they taught him that alcohol is evil and will kill you and you should never ever touch a drop and should nag your parents incessantly if they choose to do so. It's ludicrous. Anyway, now he doesn't ask for sips of my beer.

But if you don't enjoy it, there's no point in drinking it. And lemonade is pretty darn god, too. :-)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've been surprised by all the support. I thought I'd be the odd one out.

My nephew grew up loving the taste of beer. He's now a Guinness drinker. I've managed to sink the odd pint of that stuff- in spite of it tasting like ink- but I've usually wanted to give up at the halfway mark.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I read about Dylan's last days--how he went into a pub and drank himself into a stupor, knowing it would kill him, and it did.

I made a choice long ago to avoid drinking much or getting to like it, and mostly I like red wine because it tastes like grape juice. Good thing, as I tend to overdo things.