More on Booze

I've never been a big fan of girly drinks. If I'm in the islands, I might have a pina colada or a cuba libre or six, but otherwise I like my whiskey straight or with water or seltzer. I take gin with tonic unless I'm having a martini.

Vodka's a different story. Unlike Mrs Vache Folle, the Slavic Pricess, I have never acquired a taste for straight vodka, although I drank a lot of it in Poland to be polite and to avoid appearing to be a pussy in fron of Mrs VF's kinsmen. I like raspberry juice in vodka, something the Carpathian cousins turned us on to.

The other day Mrs VF came home with Absolut pear vodka and cranberry juice cocktail. There had been a tasting at the liquor store. This is a fantastic combination. The carnberry juice realy brings out the pear flavor.

Vodka tonic is my usual vodka delivery system. Sometimes I'll have a vodka martini, although I won't go out of my to get a martini.

Perhaps starter drinks were less available when I was a youngster (the drinking age was 18 in Georgia in those days), but I managed to skip the stage where you drink grain alcohol punch, schnapps of any kind, or wine coolers. I'll enjoy a Mike's Hard Lemonade now and then, but I don't really consider it an alcoholic beverage. My carpool companion, who is fifteen years my junior, is still hooked on starter drinks. I bought him some root beer schnapps because he had raved about it, and he was thrilled to get it. He still goes for Jaegermeister and Goldschlager, and his wife favors the Bartles & Jaymes. He has actually tried Zima. In his defense, he loves Johnnie Walker Blue and orders shots of it at corporate outings as long as the bill can't be traced to him.

The Kids in the Hall once did a skit about a man who became an alcoholic on girly drinks. It was hilarious. I think he had a blender on skid row so he could make daquiris.

Girly drinks will frak you up. The sugar and other fillers make for a huge hangover and potential projectile vomiting. Mrs VF learned in Bermuda many years ago to avoid drinks that are blue or green. Keep it claen if you don't want to suffer on the morrow.