Everyday Drinking by Kingsley Amis
Author:Kingsley Amis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2010-07-21T16:00:00+00:00
Today I conclude my remarks on the subject of being off the booze. This third instalment is actually about no longer being off it—returning, that is, to full membership of the human race. I had intended to keep a sort of diary of new first impressions of the various drinks as I came to them, but I somehow didn’t, and I can’t really think what I would have said if I had. “Had some Scotch (or Burgundy, or port) this evening. Excellent stuff. Tasted strongly of Scotch (Burgundy, port).” Not very helpful.
But I do remember my first drink after the break was a glass of plain Gordon’s gin and water. One thing it did for me was confirm my judgement that when it comes to drinking gin, there’s no other decent way. To pour sweetened fizz like tonic water into such a masterpiece of the distiller’s art makes about as much sense as, well, putting tomato ketchup on caviar, I was going to say, except that that strikes me as rather a sound scheme providing you’re sure you’ve got enough ketchup to spare. Anyway, you get the idea—leave your gin alone. Even a slice of lemon is really too aromatic to put in with it. Ice is all right, but I prefer to have chilled the bottle.
My second drink was a Carlsberg Special Brew, very cold, which I think is better than just cold. The effect was electrifying. As I drank the whole of my head seemed to become flooded with the taste and smell of beer. This was the result not so much of not having boozed for a spell as of having given up smoking.
Apart from all the other arguments, you’re a fool to smoke if you like the taste of drink. It isn’t the cigarette you smoke with your glass of wine or whisky that damages the taste of it, it’s all the ones you smoked yesterday and the day before and last week. Your senses are chronically anaesthetized. Really, smokers could afford to consider what they’re certainly missing as well as what they’re in danger of getting.
After much pondering I think I understand a basic reason why a glass of something reviving is so welcome in the early evening. Partly, of course, it’s just that, to revive, to relax, but it’s also a convenient way of becoming a slightly different person from your daytime self, less methodical, less calculating— however you put it, somebody different, and the prospect of that has helped to make the day tolerable. And, conversely, it’s not having that prospect that makes the day look grim to the poor old ex-boozer, more than missing the alcohol as such. Changing for dinner used to be another way of switching roles. Coming home from work has a touch of the same effect.
Writers haven’t got that advantage—when they finish work they’re at home already. So perhaps they need that glass of gin extra badly. Any excuse is better than none.
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