A-A-A-A-A-Alcohol

After a recent conversation over dinner with my long-time friend Emily, I decided to right a post revolving around most 20-something's favorite past time: dranking. Don't get me wrong, I love the sizzurp (Am I using that wrong? Does sizzurp have to contain cough syrup?), I just think it's pretty hilarious how we spend most of our leisure time consuming something that we absolutely hate the taste of. I know what you're thinking, "But Taylor, I love beer. I'm a beer connoisseur." No, you're not. And for that matter, you're not a wine connoisseur either. You might have grown to tolerate the taste or even somewhat enjoy it through some sort of weird, semi-Pavlovian response (beer leads to fun drunk times, you like fun drunk times, therefore you now like beer). The truth is, when you put alcohol up against caramel apple lollipops, bacon cheeseburgers, or extra crispy french fries, which tastes better? Not the damn alcohol.

Think about it: we're constantly mixing booze with other things in order to make it taste less like a bitter, unwashed armpit. The only reason you put a lot of alcohol in your drink, or get excited at the bar when the drink is strong, is because you want to get fucked up. If you're like me, your father used to like to play tricks

Normal reaction to alcohol

on you involving alcohol when you were a wee babby; waiting for you to ask for a sip of his "Sprite" which he knew was gin and tonic. Remember that spicy, carbonated applejuice? That Diet Coke that tasted like bubbly nailpolish remover? That pitcher of what seemed like water in the fridge that you chugged when you were ten and then exclaimed, "WHY IS THERE GASOLINE IN THE FRIDGE?" (oddly specific)? These experiences were your first foray into drinking alcohol and man, they were brutal. Nothing much has changed since then, and the taste of alcohol certainly hasn't. What's changed is you. You now know the results of muscling down that fakey water pitcher is being able to appreciate techno music on a deeper, more wiggly level rather than standing there with your arms crossed, looking unimpressed. You are now old enough to recognize the effect that alcohol has on you and so you tolerate the fact that is tastes like spermicidal lubricant in order to get that tipsy buzz we all know and love.

You can lie about it all you want. You can tell the world your favorite drink ever is a greyhound or a car bomb. But the truth is, we all know it's chocolate milk or peppermint tea. Why? Because they taste yummy! We don't need to mix them with other things in order for them to classify as passable to our palates or put them in a 1 ounce glass and shoot them directly to the backs of our throats before our taste buds even know what's happening. Next time you go to a restaurant and someone wants to order a super-fancy bottle of wine, think about it first. It's going to taste like vinegar-soaked gym socks no matter how much it costs or what year it was made in. Unless someone else is paying, save yourself the money and buy a shitty bottle. This way, you don't have pretend it tastes superior to the other, less expensive, wine you've tried when you're really thinking "Yep! This still tastes like rotten grapes and fear!" You can scowl and make all the blehhreherghe faces you usually suppress while drinking and blame it on the fact that the wine you ordered is sub par.

All that being said, I'm getting my drank on tonight.