I have a weird relationship with alcohol, and it’s embarrassing, sometimes. See, I’m not a drinker. I can go months without tasting alcohol and, as I’ve told Brian (who’s taking his second course for sommelier certification, which makes this non-drinking thing more complicated since he now has more than 100 bottles), if all the booze on the planet disappeared tomorrow, I wouldn’t even blink. Do not drink, never have drunk, never have BEEN drunk (tipsy yeah; drunk, nah), don’t understand the appeal, and most importantly I don’t like the taste of the vast majority of alcoholic beverages. Why anybody would screw up a delicious glass of tomato juice for a Bloody Mary escapes me completely, and the reason I can stomach things like melon martinis or lemon drops is because of how little they taste of booze. But that doesn’t make me a girl drink drunk because even those sissy drinks make me kind of sick after more than one.
Getting back to the subject, how is this a problem? Well, it’s hard to be a grown-up without drinking. Now, what “drinking” means is class- and culture-bound, by which I mean I am not, in the life I live now, going to have to “worry” about getting forced into a Pabst chugging contest. But outside of certain contexts (like among devout Muslims), you just have to drink to be around other grown-ups. I’ve been asked point blank (by an idiot, but still) if I was an alcoholic after I ordered a coke at a bar. I look like a cheapskate to waiters when I order water and always feel compelled to assure them that I am indeed a good tipper, just not a wine enthusiast (and I do think it’s tacky to drink soft drinks at a decent resto, but that’s just me). I can’t appreciate my partner’s most loved hobby (wine), and I just feel like I’m missing out. I envy somebody who can really enjoy craft-brewed ale or fine scotch or wine, because I cannot.
Until now! Because I did something last week that I have never done in my 44+ years on this planet: I, John Manzo, BOUGHT BEER! Not at a bar (I’ve done that plenty of times, and pissed off the bartender because I can make one beer last aaaaaaaallllllllll night because I hate the damn thing so much)- at a liquor store! A place as foreign to me as, well, a rodeo I guess. Yes I am that immature and developmentally stunted. I had never bought beer before last week.
What prompted this important stage in my personal growth? Well, I discovered Früli, which is a strawberry flavoured Belgian beer, when it came as the “wine pairing” with Brian’s dessert at our big dinner at Chef’s Table (check it out a couple of posts below this one) earlier this month. This isn’t a wine cooler. It’s a top-quality Belgian “white beer” that has real strawberry puree (not artificial flavouring or some hyper-sweetened crap) added. It’s freaking delicious. I bought it–by the bottle, $3.49 each–at Liquor Depot on 17th Ave and 11 St SW, and this is pricey stuff because the bottle is teensy:
As all my fans and stalkers know, my hands are freakishly huge and so this pic might be misleadingly making the bottle look smaller than it really is, so this is what the contents look like poured into a 16-oz glass:
Nice strawberry colour eh? But yeah, this is too pricey and wee to get drunk on (though it is 4.8% alcohol, which surprised me a bit). But that’s the best way to enjoy this stuff, right? I mean, I have no interest in getting shitfaced, and so for me, as with coffee, it’s got to be about quality and not quantity. I might drink, sometimes, and that’s cool.
Op uw gezondheid!
