Gin & It

Or, perhaps, Gin & IT
Why start writing about cocktails at all? Everyone seems to have an opinion and most express them all too willingly.

Well, I do like to drink--probably more than my doctor would approve. Whenever she asks how much I drink a day, I say "oh, maybe two." Right. I drink mostly Martinis and some occasional Sidecars and French 75's. And in summer, Gin & Tonics and Margaritas (the real ones) so we aren't talking wimpy glasses of wine here. But I also believe in drinking these "the old-fashioned way" (not to be confused with drinking Old Fashioneds--which if I do, it's Whiskey, by the way, not Brandy). Remember "The Thin Man"? Now, Nick and Nora, they knew how to do it right--lots of small cocktails and a healthy respect for ice bags.

But really, I like the culture and literacy of cocktails. I've grown so bored with abstention and abstemiousness. Being a prig is the latest of virtues (ah, see my comments on frugality at grandedameit.blogspot.com. Definitely related) and I'm old enough now to have worn out my virtue gene to a small extent. Robbing banks, weeks of non-stop debauchery, serious binges--all out of the question. Just too tiring.

But a couple of classically made cocktails in the evening before the spinach/tofu dinner (oh, my, maybe I really am becoming a prig), well, that's a sweet moment of the day, a moment that marks the transition from "damn, I didn't get a third of what I needed to do today finished" to "wow, beautiful Spring evening, innit?"

If I'm not too much in my cups, I suspect there are others of you out there who would just like to chat about the glories of gin, the vim of vermouth, or the twaddle of tee-totalling. Enough--alliteration, like virtue, gets boring very fast.