I always thought of cocktails as something for grown-ups, the height of sophistication. They were those strong, spirit-forward drinks you’d see men in suits nursing at a gleaming bar on television. I’m not talking about the teenage summer holiday “Sex on the Beach,” which is ninety-nine percent fruit juice. I mean what I then considered a real cocktail: Martinis, Old Fashions and, at that stage in my life, I hadn’t even heard of a Negroni.
I was an awful drinker when I was younger. For a start, I was a lightweight, but more importantly, my taste was dreadful. It’s hard to reconcile that with the reflection I see now, a supposed purveyor of fine wine and Negronis. Back then, I scoffed at beer and lager. Whisky and bourbon made me gag. Wine tasted like paint stripper. To be fair, wine in the UK didn’t have the best reputation at the time, and my only real exposure was the dubious, sometimes homemade brew my father drank.
When I began drinking more, partly through working in hospitality and partly through nights out with friends, I mixed drinks with reckless abandon. Not in pursuit of a better buzz, but because I had no idea what I actually liked. It was the era of bad mixers. Everything was paired with Coke, whether it belonged there or not. With the benefit of hindsight, nothing belongs with cola. Then came the age of the alcopop, the sugary concoctions marketed to new drinkers, or kids, depending on your perspective. They were so sweet you got more of a sugar rush than anything from the modest five percent alcohol supposedly lurking inside. Naturally, I embraced them wholeheartedly. They did the job, or so I thought, though the savage hangovers that followed were likely as much about the sugar crash as the alcohol.
I endured the teasing from friends for drinking what were dismissively labelled “girly drinks.” To be fair, I probably did serve more of those to women, but I was also working in pubs filled with lager louts and old regulars, where the staples were Stella, Spitfire and pints of dreadful “wine” topped up with soda.
I endured the teasing from friends for drinking what were dismissively labelled “girly drinks.” To be fair, I probably did serve more of those to women, but I was also working in pubs filled with lager louts and old regulars, where the staples were Stella, Spitfire and pints of dreadful “wine” topped up with soda.
Gradually, I emerged from the sugary fog. I trained myself to drink Corona, then IPAs. My real love affair with wine began after sharing a remarkable Bordeaux with an old girlfriend’s father. He knew his wine and appreciated it with near-religious devotion. That evening opened my eyes to what good wine could be. Unfortunately, it also opened the floodgates. I had no idea what had hit me, and my manager at the jewellery store where I worked at the time paid the price the next day, right before the Christmas Eve rush. I blamed a stomach bug, but if you couldn’t smell the tannins seeping from my pores, your sense of smell must have failed entirely. I suspect the whole shop carried the scent for days. For that, I remain deeply sorry. Truly, I’ve rarely felt worse.
I would love to say it never happened again, but I didn’t learn that quickly. Instead, my journey with wine continued, alongside a growing appreciation for proper cocktails and the inevitable hangovers that came with both. In the end, though, it was a journey that shaped my palate and defined my tastes in a way that still holds true today.
Photo by Danny Lines