I'm a bit of a drunk myself.  I'm partial to bourbon, partly because I work at a restaurant with a huge bourbon selection and they encourage us to become bourbon snobs.  But I've come to the realization though that I just don't have the palette or the energy to really care, so I just go for what's cheap.  Unless I'm on one of my occasional manhattan kicks, just give me a rail bourbon and a PBR.

I am rather broken up over the fact that I can't really drink beer right now for health reasons. I can grab a couple lagers but the dark beers I love most are out. I got into red wine there for awhile but I get sick of it too fast to really be into it. That's left me with white wine which I find way too sweet and completely sissified 98% of the time.

That of course leaves hard liquor which is not anything to complain about. Tequila was a favorite of mine for awhile and I think it offers to broadest range of tastes within a single drink. It can have a sweet, a sour, a kick and so many other tastes all within one shot. I've even had a port-like tequila. I appreciate gin a heckuva lot and nothing really tops a great whiskey in my mind. For me, it's the only thing that compares to tequila for drinking straight. Gin is a great cutter in many other things...martinis, bloody marys...but it's just not something I enjoy neat.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

I enjoy the occasional shot of single-malt, but I think because of the whole single-malt mania blended scotches have become underrated. You can drink more of them and you can unabashadely pour them over ice.  

There seems to be many more Belgian beers available on tap these days, which is nice.

Midshelf scotch

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

...in an elevator. Livin it up when I'm going down.

Actually, I have been avoiding all elevators for the past 3 weeks after a series of unfortunate events lead to me being stuck in one at work for 25 minutes.

Anywho, Rum is what gets this party started. I feel kind of bad because I don't really have a taste for wine. I think we need an official TnT winery tour so I can tell the difference between good and bad.

Beer wise it's vitamin Y.

Oh, and in other news, I hate all alcohol snobs. Unless you are really into gin and you tell a bartender "I simply must get out of these wet clothes and into a dry martini." In that case I'll give you a pass.

Oban.  Lagavulin.  Bowmore.

Also: Tanq 10 and Hendricks Martinis.  With measurable vermouth content and olives.

Alcohol is unquestionably a very important drug, but perhaps it is not really the world's drug of choice.  There are many countries in which alcohol is illegal, because alcohol is prohibited by Islam.  

Tobacco is more widely used than alcohol and is legal everywhere, although it is also very widely (and correctly) regarded as a health menace, and its use is increasingly discouraged even if it is not banned outright.

Probably the most widely used and widely accepted drug in the world is caffeine (found in coffee, cola, and chocolate).  However, the effect of caffeine is generally quite mild.  At worst, caffeine sometimes keeps people up past the time they had wanted to go to sleep, although there are also long-term health effects, particularly on the heart.  Whereas alcoholic intoxication is a much more impressive (and dangerous) effect.  Hence, when considering candidates for the title of the world's drug of choice, it would be easy to overlook caffeine.  Still, it deserve the title.

My mom's Italian...we're not from New Jersey...just Staten Island with is pretty much the same thing.

But I digress...

Chianti was a traditional drink at all the big holiday dinners.  At the time, I can't imagine why anyone would drink it on purpose.  Maybe my parents thought by offering up this wine they would dissuade my sibs and I from drinking.  Small hope!  Even when I was quite young, I got a glass and after a while I got to like it.  

It's been years since I had any chianti so I thought I would try it again.  Unfortunately, the grocery store I frequent only had Gallo Chianti.  That's ok, because that's what my folks bought anyway. (I do not come from a long line of highbrow drinkers).  So, I carefully twisted off the metal cap...sniffed it appreciatively, and poured a glass.

When did Chianti become sweet?!  I always remembered it as having a pucker inducing dryness.  Did my palette change or did the good folks at Gallo throw a handful of sugar into each bottle?

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine