I can remember as a child my first taste of beer and wondering what is all the fuss about. I was expecting some wondrous flavor, to be much better than orange juice, even better than strawberries and cream, but no it was to be a bitter disappointment indeed, bitter being the operative word.
This new drink was SO bitter it would make you screw your face up as if you were entering a gurning competition, it was I thought maybe some sort of blend of sand, soap, salt, petroleum, sulphuric acid, and maybe some embalming fluid. It seemed to me that someone was having a joke at my expense and somewhere along the line someone would pop out and give me a glass of the REAL BEER, the one everybody else was drinking and enjoying. But no this was it, the all powerful elixir of life, the drink of champions and solver of the worlds problems. How could I now be a champion, King of the land, leader of the pack, save the world from all that is evil and bad if I couldn't even drink this crap. Something would have to give. Ah! Lemonade, English lemonade that is,Sprite to you here in the colonies, ops! Sorry USA. The sweet addition made the whole thing more palatable and now I could join the party of life with the big boys chugging pint after pint until the early hours.
The whole point was to look around the pub and see who was doing the best in the game of life, this could be assessed by watching who drank the most volume wise, had the most expensive taste, bought the most drinks for every one of his friends or indeed other people not friends, and still managed to appear in control of the situation or in fact not if he just spent enough and you got your share. Real big shots drank what we call shorts gin and tonic, vodka and orange, whiskey dry so on. The elite drank these on their own straight up. While I was in this early stage of development I was allowed to nurse my sugary elixir of beer and lemonade "SHANDY" or lager and lime, the next step up, followed by a gut retching powerful alcoholic dynamite drink called scrumpy, "CIDER".
This three year scholarship was an incredible experience touring drinking establishments around the Midlands and of course getting to know where the bathroom was in each and every one of them. This was all in the aim of finding my ACQUIRED TASTE for the wonderful array of devilish liquors called BEER. The progression to beer straight up was just this, acquiring the taste for this fluid called beer, it had crept up on me without me noticing all the effects, my palette had changed and now accepted this dry bitter bland fluid, I had been tricked and now moved onto experimenting with the other stuff, again adding sweeteners to ACQUIRE the taste. Did I like it, who knows, it wasn't about the taste, it was all about looking the part and appearing affluent and affording it. The more I could drink and buy the more successful I was, or so I had been led to believe. On a desert island with only the option of one fluid to drink of sound body and mind the sane person would pick water over alcohol, given the choice of all the drinks in the whole world I can honestly say that if I were asked of my favorite drink for taste alone, it would be orange juice with the vodka and orange coming second only because of affect.
I am now in a prolonged period of my life where I am alcohol free, my brain has suddenly jumped into gear spurred on by my respect for the aging process and advancing years, I am guarding my health by eating and drinking healthily and finding an ease in doing so by thinking back at the disgust of the taste of beer in my early youth and logically saying to myself "WHY NOT" orange juice, why would I drink a sort of blend of sand, soap, salt, petroleum, sulfuric acid, and maybe some embalming fluid or should I call it BEER!
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