My life in 6 drinks
Coffee with my dad, a martini with Isabella Rossellini, and bourbon with everybody. Plus, the perfect pairing: A spirited playlist.
For the sixth time, I’m doing Dry January. It’s a welcome opportunity to reset my relationship with alcohol, and a way to help prepare for a long-distance race in mid-February. (More on that in a future edition.)
So it seemed like a good time to reflect on the drinking life — the good, the bad, the sloppy. I’ve boiled down my years on earth to 6 drinks, from sodas consumed in some of my earliest memories to cocktails I barely remember at all, from my very first martini to my next one … due after that race in February.
So whether your January be dry, damp, or otherwise, pour yourself a strong cup of (possibly NA) cheer, queue up the spirited playlist below, and enjoy.
1. Black coffee (1985-1991; 1996-2003; 2008-present)
An early memory: Before bedtime, scooping ground Folger’s from a tin can into a coffee filter, one scoop for every cup Mr. Coffee would brew the next morning. My dad carrying a Stanley thermos full of joe to work every morning. Sneaking the occasional cup of coffee before service at church. I still take mine black, as my father and the Lord intended.
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Back when they still allowed smoking in restaurants, my friends and I would sit in the non-smoking section of Village Inn and talk about movies, girls, life. Much to the servers’ delight, we would order one pot of coffee for a group of five to eight teenagers, bringing our bill to roughly five bucks for our entire group. (I can only hope we tipped.) At least once, we nearly get kicked out, due to a friend’s high-volume Forrest Gump impression.
A quarter-century later, I still see those friends once a year or so. The beverages might have changed, but the conversations remain as hilarious and vital and life-affirming as ever.
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Such were my wild nights in college that Fridays often found me studying film noir textbooks and pining for the baristas at a tucked-away downtown cafe until closing time. (Apparently it’s now a wine and oyster bar?) At my side: A trusty Discman, usually with Cat Power’s Moon Pix or her first covers record loaded up. I might have scribbled away at a few screenplays, and some poetry, all fueled by $1 refills of coffee. I was a little like Ethan Hawke in Before Sunrise without the inconvenience of being handsome, glamorous, or charming.
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I held out as long as I could. For years, coffee was my go-to when I needed an extra gear to finish a paper or work project. But by 2008 or so, the divine liquid proved impossible to resist: Like my dad, I became a daily coffee drinker. I still take it black.
2. Soda pop (1986-2004)
Another early memory: Sitting on the front porch of our house on Magnolia Street, sipping “pop” (RC Cola) from a glass bottle. (Also a memory: Knocking over the bottle, sprinkling approximately one million shards of glass across said porch.) A sweet tooth for soda that lasts until I’m 23, when I quit cold turkey.
A rough estimate: Across the 15 years or so when I’m a hardcore cola consumer, I consumed approximately 10,950 cans of soda, or 131,400 ounces of soda. That’s 1,026 gallons, or enough to fill two small ponds, a good-sized cowboy pool, or 100 Stetsons. I hope someday my bladder, and my blood sugar levels, will forgive me.
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1990. The first wedding I remember attending. The first time I wear a tux. The first time I dance with a girl. And… my first open bar. At some point, I get a soda with a cherry in it, and for some reason announce that I’m having “A mixed drink!,” even though I don’t even really know what that means. My grandmother — a woman who made her sons cross the street whenever they walked by a bar in their small Iowa town — informs my parents, in all seriousness, that she thinks I’m drinking alcohol. They assure her I’m not, the girl gets away, I still look sharp in a tux, and still know my way around an open bar.
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As a natural born rule-follower, I didn’t try alcohol until I had legal clearance, thanks to a school trip to Europe after my senior year of high school. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but unlike some of my fellow travelers, I tread cautiously. I remember drinking white wine at an arcade. (Probably ordered like that: “I’ll take one white wine, s’il-vous plait!”) Skipping the beer at Hofbrauhaus. (Das mistake.) And, in an oddly empty discotheque in Rome, I stomached half a rum and Coke. Except I called it a “Roman Coke.” It would be years before I realized my mistake.
3. The martini (2008-present)
Call it love at first sip. My then-girlfriend, now-wife, is an infinitely more sophisticated drinker than I am. On one of our earliest dates, we go to The Odeon, Keith McNally’s spot famous for adorning the cover of Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City, where we sit near Isabella Rossellini. (Riveting, of course.) Somehow, Allison and I talk about martinis. Specifically, that I’ve never had one.
So with the nerves of an understudy thrust into the spotlight mere minutes before showtime, I order by reciting my lines exactly as directed: One gin martini, up, three olives, a little bit dirty. (In later years, I’ll specify the gin — Hendrick’s — and drop the dirty part.) It’s delicious, so much so that, a few years later, Allison has to cut me off before I can order a third martini, made and served from a bar cart, at a restaurant in Austin (on my birthday, no less).
What can I say? Like Mae West, I think too much of a good thing is wonderful.
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As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to prefer the well-executed classic to the interestingly-executed novelty — whether it’s clothes, music, or a restaurant. And so we end up spending our date nights at our favorite neighborhood joint, the one with dim lights, an expertly-curated wine list, a great burger, and the perfect martini. It’s easy to think ahead a few years or even decades, and imagine spending dinner here with the kids as they grow into adulthood.
At its best, a good drink elevates an ordinary occasion into an extraordinary one, and allows an intimacy with friends and family that might otherwise be difficult to obtain.
Especially if you stop after one.
4. Bourbon (2008-2017)
It’s one of the biggest moments of my drinking life, and I wasn’t even there. The Alabama-based fashion designer Billy Reid stopped by our offices to record a video, and brought a mini bar’s worth of bourbon with him. Suffice it to say things got a little messy, but for some reason, I wasn’t in the office that day. In any event, a bourbon guide was commissioned, and I was put in charge of editing that guide. This of course required extensive tasting, and I was even able to bring home a bottle of coveted Pappy Van Winkle — then a phenomenon, if not yet the kind of booze that inspires a full-on heist. (The aforementioned then-girlfriend, now-wife even gets me a bottle from a random Kips Bay wine shop that Christmas; a few years later, when she calls up Astor Wine asking for a bottle, they ask her if she’s seen a unicorn lately and hang up.)
In these years, bourbon is Cheap. And Good. And therefore, it becomes my go-to for occasions both special and not. At our wedding? Bourbon punch. When a friend comes through town? Break out the good stuff. Day ending in “y”? Sure, a dram of Weller goes down nice and easy.
In recent years, I’ve probably downed more pre-run electrolyte waters than whiskey neats, and for good reason: I’m not getting any younger, and the days of free-flowing Pappy are sadly behind us.
5. An encyclopedia of cocktails (2009-2014)
Editing a food and nightlife publication at the height of the craft cocktail renaissance provides one with the opportunity to sample a lot of drinks. (You know, for research purposes.) At the start of this period, I was living in the East Village, newly engaged. By the end, I was married with a kid, soon to decamp to Brooklyn. In between, well, things get a little blurry.
I remember(ish): Red and Blacks at Back Forty. Old Peppers at Attaboy. I Hear Banjos at the Wayland. Micheladas on our trips to Texas. Redbreast neat at 11th Street Bar. Late-night Genny at Doc Holliday’s. Bottles of red at Maialino. Imperial pints at St. Dymphna’s. Clandestine cocktails at PDT, Death and Co., and Angel’s Share. Sake-fueled karaoke sessions that would’ve outlasted an Eras Tour concert. And no doubt, I’ve forgotten many, many more.
Toward the end of this time, I remember cataloging all my friends who stayed out too late when we met up for drinks. And I finally realized the common denominator: It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me…
Let’s just say that a full year after I left the city, I returned to a favorite bar for a Guinness. And to my surprise, the bartender not only remembered my name, but my order. What does that tell you?
6. Sparkling water (2016-present)
And this brings us back to where it all began: A non-alcoholic beverage in a sturdy glass bottle. Except now, it’s Topo Chico. (Fun fact: My wife, Texas native, used to ship Topo by the case to our Brooklyn apartment.)
During these dry days, I look forward to my mid-afternoon Rambler like you wouldn’t believe. (It’s cheaper, and local-er, than Topo, which is now owned by Coke.) It’s the fizz, and it’s the ceremony. But it’s also a reminder that Dry January isn’t about what you give up, it’s about what you gain — a little calm, a little clarity, a little focus, a little energy.
Just don’t ask me to give up my coffee.
Until martini time,
p
P.S.: Just want to say thanks to my longtime friend and partner in crime, Rick, who was gracious enough to invite me to provide topical playlists for his radio program nearly a decade ago. Today’s playlist owes a huge debt to the one I made for his “Adult Beverages” episode, and this entire newsletter might not exist without the inspiration and experience from doing that show.
*Tea? I can’t tell. But what do know is how Dylan’s feeling here. (Not great, Bob.)
Coincidink?! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yl6dI2vkDAY