There’s a reason for why it has been around for centuries. Its just good, that’s pretty much it. When I started my drinking career I pretty much stuck with beer or hard liquor. The go to drink in high school was rum and coke; sadly the only one that would run out at every party was the coke. I can’t really recall any party back home where having alcohol was an issue. Growing up in a country where the drinking age is 18 really changes your perspective on the substance. The learning curve is quite different, not that I am saying it was better. It should also be noted that when I say the drinking age is 18, I really mean it was accessible to us years before that. Most of the kids in school would be partying and drinking ridiculous amounts of booze as early as 14 or 15. I was not one of these “cool kids” and really didn’t touch a bottle until 17. Regardless, some of my worst times with alcohol were during high school, and my way of approaching it has changed in the greatest way.

Freshman year really translated what drinking habits were back in my teenage years. Liquor and mixers. Beer was all right, but nothing like hard alcohol to really set us on the path to intoxication in a cheap manner. It still wasn’t as cheap as it could be, but I am proud to say I can count the times I drank Rubinoff with one hand, maybe two. Still, it was pretty messy. Write ups were happening every other three weeks so my handle on it was not at all what it should be. It’s not the best thing when the first impression you try to make is to say that you can handle your shit, only to end up puking in front of your dorm the first weekend and already have 25 hours of service the first month into college, ever. That happening to me is brought up at least once a semester. My friends make sure of that.

Make no mistakes. I love alcohol. If you give me a mojito, I’ll love it. Round of shots? I’m down. Whiskey on the rocks? Of course! But if it were up to me, things would be very different around here. I only really think we should have access to three main sources of alcohol. I would really only want two of them, but I can’t really leave the other one out, just because it’d go against my logic on why those types of alcohol have been able to transcend through the centuries.

Beer is pretty cool. So many flavors, so many styles, so many ways to have it. Mixes with juices to create different kinds of beer, different beer from different parts of the world, different beer processes, you name it. Hot day at the beach, nothing like a cold one to set you straight. Still, I have a huge problem with beer. It’s just not the best you could do. The health aspect is pretty present, where you are literally shoving carbs into your system, so trying to stay fit is going to be a tough cookie to crack. Granted there are people who love off of beer and look like God himself chiseled them, so do not ask me how to achieve that. I am no magician. Still, I look over the health aspect because once you have a brew, its tough to leave it to just one glass. No my problem with beer is more about the experience. Bloating and having to piss constantly is no fun. And not to be sexist, but if it’s a bitch for someone that doesn’t have to wait as long for a bathroom, I can’t imagine how girls handle drinking all that beer and having to wait for a stall for so long. Props to you.

But like I said, it’s just uncomfortable. I reach a point where I just feel huge and bloated. It’s uncomfortable, and the beer drunk is very particular. I feel more useless than other types of drunk. Also, a lot of burping starts to go on, and even though getting a loud one is pretty funny, I still find it bothersome feeling like your about to burst, hoping to get some release at some point. However, beer has been around for a while, and I certainly can’t say I’d like to live in a world without it.

The other two, are quite special. The first drop of alcohol I ever had was wine. First communion, seven years old, is when I decided that wine was the worst thing I had ever put in my mouth. I couldn’t comprehend how my grandfather would drink it with his pasta or salmon at every dinner. I knew we were Italian, but no way in hell was I putting that awful stuff anywhere near me. It must’ve been a couple of years before I hit ten or eleven years of age, when I discovered the sangria. I loved it! I couldn’t taste any bad part of the wine, it was a bunch of sprite, and hell, it worked way better than sneaking Kahlua at family gatherings. It really isn’t the healthiest thing to do, but I would find myself home alone, just making sangrias and drinking them in the backyard pretending I was at the beach when I was about 14. Still, I would only have one or two of them, and I was not loading them at all. Alcohol at that young of an age is a problem though, and I realize that now.

I can’t really pinpoint when it changed, but at some point in Sophomore year or Junior year, I just started drinking it because it was the one alcohol diets were least not ok with when I was trying to lose weight. I started drinking it and I could not believe the wonders that it was. My money to get drunk went from a whopping $40 a weekend for rum or vodka, to $10 for a bottle that if I finished, meant I had already had enough for the night. It was a bit of a hard change, but I just started liking the redder the wine was. Merlot of course to this day remains my absolute fave.

There’s something about wine you don’t get with other drinks. It’s really hard to explain, but it just feels good. Every sip is a whole range of flavors, each in a different part of when it touches your tongue, to your gums, back of the throat, and my absolute favorite, running down your throat. It’s so warm, I swear I could stand in boxers during a snowstorm and still feel warm and fuzzy inside full of wine. I like wine because it requires patience. Feel free to chug a glass of wine, but trust me, it sucks pretty bad. Wine needs to be tasted. It takes time to hit your stomach and so much goes on before it reaches the end of the journey. Be weary though, because wine packs a punch.

I like that about it. Not a lot of money has to be spent to get a good buzz going. Wine takes care of that, and the drunk you get from it is very different than with other alcohol. I feel that beer or just liquor makes you angry. There’s a lot of energy packed in a beer or tequila drunk. The culture around it is smashing beer cans, throwing shit, punching walls, chugging, keg stand, funnels, shotguning, all of these things so quick and violent administrations of alcohol I feel like just build up tension and energy. Mix that with the heightened confidence and a brawl is ready to go at any minute.

Wine though I feel like is more passive. I start to smile a lot more, my cheeks so red and warm. I want to dance, I want to move and laugh. It sucks though because if wine does anything right is target your motor skills. It feels goofy. I recall while watching a season finale for Game of Thrones where I got so stressed and pissed off I finished my bottle of wine and as soon as I went outside I just totally wiped out and it looked like someone had mugged me and beaten the living crap out of me.

The other drink I keep in mind if I want to have a drink is really close to wine. Rice wine actually. Sake is something I have discovered pretty recently. I had always been a fan of sushi, but as soon as I was able to order alcohol at a restaurant, I went straight for sake. I had seen the episode of That 70’s Show and since it I wanted to experience the drink that made Eric get a tattoo of Woodstock on his ass. The fist time I had sake however, was probably not the best way to do it.

It was winter break and I was visiting my girlfriend up north and I had a layover in Chicago. First time going there actually so I was excited to see what the city where Lollapalooza was held looked like. Basically what happened is that it snowed so hard that the airport shut down for a whole day. They had been delaying flights for about five hours until they finally decided to pull the plug. During the delays I had gotten a couple of whiskeys with lunch, and was talking with everyone else getting screwed over. When I realized I would be spending the night there, for the first time ever I might add, I decided I needed to get all the help I could to go to sleep.

Walking around the terminal I come across a sushi bar. Loving the Asian food as much as I do, I went straight in. A light bulb goes off and I order sake right away. I know that it is usually warm, which I thought was strange, but I went with it anyway. I think experiencing sake alongside sushi alone made me reassure myself of trying to go to Japan, which thank God actually happened and I was able to go there for a week. Anyways, I take the first sip from it and to my surprise tasted quite, well, good.

It wasn’t like trying a new alcohol. There was no pain. No burn. No chemical taste that tells you “yeah this shouldn’t be in you”. It was warm too, so the fact that it was alcohol was even stranger to me. It paired perfectly with sushi, especially the saltiness of the soy sauce. I finish one big serving of it and order the second bottle. Halfway through the second bottle, my girlfriend asks me through facetime why I am screaming into the phone. I look up and notice people are looking at me. I realize I’m pretty shattered and have been raising my voice gradually as I refilled my sake cup, called ochoko. Boy does sake pack a punch. When I actually went to Japan it took less than one bottle to get us pretty tipsy.You can tell by my face, but the waitress was finding it amusing that we wanted a photo to immortalize our first authentic sake experience.

In a certain way, sake is just like warm. You’re warm inside, but the head feels a lot more light than other types of drunk. Slurring is more pronounced than that of wine, but both are pretty bad. I guess my main focus with wine and sake is that they are for enjoyment. You cant really speed up the process. Sure you can take sake shots, but I don’t like that because I cannot taste it. It’s the two alcohols that I truly love based purely on the flavor, as well as drinking method. I respect the drinks a lot more than other sources of booze. It’s a weird feeling to describe, but getting drunk slowly is so much more rewarding than a quick combo of shots plus energy drinks. Let alone it being so much cheaper, and simpler to drink. No prep goes into it, and if you’re lazy, you don’t even need to heat it up. Be warned, cold sake is so much easier to drink that hot. It is tasteless, and honestly, when chilled even tastes just like water. Frightening.

Either way, if you share my passion for wine or sake, I hope you are all safe with them. I’m not trying to condone drinking, but I feel that there is a certain art to it and it has been lost. I find myself daydreaming about walking into a giant hall, setting my armor next to the fire to dry, and just listen to a bard go on and on while I pound my goblet demanding more wine from whatever Inn I decided to crash at. Or even better, just keep drinking sake as sushi gets delivered constantly. I swear sushi tastes so unbelievably good after a few rounds of sake. Either way dear friends, enjoy it responsibly. Like I said, these drinks demand respect. Give it to them, and everything will be alright. ~ad astra ultraque