MONDAY 14 JULY: The Noble Spirit

MONDAY 14 JULY: The Noble Spirit

The day after the weekend. The worst. You’re not in the alcohol-tinged haze of a Sunday, but not fully recovered as on a Tuesday – you’re in that bizarre state of limbo where your liver, kidneys and central nervous system are all letting you know that right now you are persona non grata (although to be fair, the CNS doesn’t have a leg to stand on, considering that it sparked the idea of drinking in the first place, and facilitated the act.)

Which brings me to a burning question, (pardon the pun) something that popped into my head in the wake of a solid 10 day week of drinking, partying, too little sleep and general debauchery (and the yuppie flu that follows – I feel, to quote Marian Keyes, “as rough as a badger’s arse”)
Why do we drink? I mean there are a whole lot of good reasons: some drinks taste awesome, being drunk is fun, drinking lowers inhibitions and makes hooking up possible even for ugly and socially inept people, it’s a social thing to do, there was a R5 house brand special at Tiger on Tuesday… I don’t have to poll people to know that I’ll hear many answers, much like those.

However, when you think about the biological side of it, drinking seems pretty irrational – alcohol is toxic to the body, and everybody knows that. It puts strain on the liver and kidneys; kills brain cells and dehydrates all somatic cells (hence the more water you drink, the less hardcore your hangover will be. Seriously, it works! When you remember, anyway.)
You wouldn’t make a cocktail out of rat poison and brake fluid and drink it, so why down those 7 double rum and cokes? It makes about as much sense, and (surprisingly) drinking can be as fatal. You feel like shit the next day (and sometimes for several days, i.e. my experience, New Years day-3rd January 2008.) and yet, we all remain quite willing to get wasted over and over again.

Worse, alcohol can be embarrassing. I don’t personally suffer from “beer goggles” but I know many people who do – hooking up enthusiastically with the ugliest person in the room is NOT going to do much for your social reputation. Less so if your friends are armed with a camera and the evidence is put on facebook. Falling all over the place in a club, attempting to strip, suddenly pulling out dance moves circa 1957 (think “The Sprinkler”, “The Knock-Knee”, etc.), chundering your guts out in front of about a hundred people, and acting like a nymphomaniac on heroin are just a few of the cringe-worthy drunken exploits that people experience every time – so why do we keep on doing it?
There doesn’t seem to be a pro that weighs out the cons, yet we keep coming back for more.
It was suggested to me that “alcohol is just too good to turn down” – so I have decided, in my quest for answers, to rate a number of different alcohols that I and my mates regularly consume, in the hope of achieving some clarity.

SPIRIT COOLERS (i.e. Brutal Fruit, Smirnoff Spin, etc.)

The most pathetic of all alcohol types. Nice to enjoy on a day at the cricket or on the beach when you have an entire day of sunshine and drinking ahead of you and need to pace yourself, because it is nearly impossible to get drunk off coolers. On what authority do I base this statement? Spending a day at the cricket with my dad, aged 15, Strawberry Brutal Fruit was cheaper than cooldrink and, being installed near the bar for the afternoon, that was what he agreed to get me. After about 8 or 9 of these on an empty stomach in a few hours, I was still able to walk to the car and only passed out with “sunstroke” a while after we had gotten home. Pathetic.

BEER

Slightly better than spirit coolers. Although not great tasting according to me (I’m gonna get it from the boys for saying so though) it does the job when consumed in large quantities, is relatively inexpensive, and is available in jugs at Springboks on Thursdays. Also comes in many different (apparently interesting) types and flavours. Not my thing, but not half bad either.

APPLE SOURS

I’m not talking about the new Tang Bite 36% stuff, which, incidentally, gets a definitive 3 stars. I’m talking about good old apple sours. The stuff we all grew up sneaking on New Years Eve from our older siblings and cousins. It’s a nice-tasting, if only moderately potent shooter, not at all expensive, and combines very, very nicely with many other alcohols, (its greatest selling point!) However, there are two serious criticisms for apple sours going solo – firstly, for a shooter, its pretty weak and you need to hit a LOT of them to get properly pissed, and secondly, thanks to the ridiculous sugar content, a hardcore drinker is more likely to get serious heartburn before they get drunk. Thus, two and a half stars.

SOUTHERN COMFORT

Again, not a favourite of mine, having had some run-ins with SoCo punch and a game of Kings and the "acceptance rule". I don’t particularly rate the taste, even when combined with sprite (and God alone knows what else) in a punch bowl, although it is tolerable with lime. And it definitely gets the job done! Even though I don’t like it, a well deserved 3 stars.

BRANDY

A favourite from my home ground behind the boerewors curtain, this drink has kept generations of boerseuns and plaasmeisies happily drunk around the braai after the rugby on a Saturday afternoon. Although not as popular with their English counterparts, it is nonetheless a universal South African drink. While a couple of “klippies-en-colas” (brandy and cokes) will get you pleasantly drunk, a few too many will usually result in one of two outcomes: belligerence (hence the Afrikaans nickname “bakleiwyn”) or tearful drunken melancholy (in Afrikaans, “dronkverdriet”). All in all, a very entertaining experience, although I can think of nicer, more palatable ways to get drunk.

VODKA

An old favourite, from my first days of illicit underage drinking. There are few drinks as simultaneously potent and tasty as a double vodka, lime and lemonade. Vodka is relatively inexpensive and easy to disguise as water or plain cool drink as it has no colour. It goes well with practically any mixer, even fruit juices (hail vodka and OJ!) and it definitely gets you pissed, with a tolerable hangover the next day. One downside is that one seems to build up a steady tolerance to vodka if you drink it regularly, making it a potentially expensive habit for you (or your boyfriend/string of male admirers) to maintain.

CANE

Ah. The noble spirit. A thoroughbred in a stable of carthorses. The Leonidas of white alcohol. I cannot praise this majestic distillation enough! Cane has been my friend through many good times, my consolation in the wake of shitty tests and law exams. I have often fallen asleep on drunken weekends, cuddled up with my trusty friend, Cape to Rio. Cane is awe-inspiring: anybody who has been to a house-party hosted or co-hosted by yours truly will cringe in horror at the words “cane punch”. (It’s called “punch” for a reason. Literally.)

Cane is wonderful, in so many ways – which inevitably merits the mention of that beautiful, unbeatable combination: cane and creme soda. Is there a more amazing twosome anywhere in the known universe? I highly doubt it. Nothing brings me more joy than the sight of a barman carrying a brimming cane and creme soda jug my way on a crowded jug night at Springboks.

Cane is awesome because when mixed, it magically becomes almost tasteless. Cane and creme soda, therefore tastes like creme soda, even at triple strength. Thus, you get drunk really easily, almost without realizing it. In fact, you can get wasted without any conscious effort on your part! How marvelous! Cane is also a charitable drink – it has been getting ugly drunk people laid since time immemorial. It’s quite strong, and makes THE most AWESOME punch (even if you make less lethal varieties than our infamous “traffic light punch”). The much admired C&C combo (aka “green mamba”, or “green ambulance”) is delicious, refreshing, and smooth on the palate, and where value for money is concerned, cane is definitely the cheapest quality hardtack around. Which makes the slightly more vicious cane hangover a gladly made sacrifice.

I could go on for many more paragraphs, but the virtues of cane have been extolled over and over by my colleagues in UCT journalism, so I will say nothing more than this: four and a half stars. (Five, if you’re brave enough to drink it neat.)

TEQUILA

Oh shit. That’s the first thing that goes through my mind when I hear the word “tequila”. The undisputed king of shooters, hell, of alcohol in general. If you think it tastes good, then you are either a figment of Clive Cussler’s imagination, or a drooling idiot (i.e. you have already had a few tequilas and can no longer feel your mouth, let alone your taste buds.) This stuff is mean. 3-5 tequilas will generally set you up for the night; more than that and you are on very shaky ground. Personally, (thanks to a legend called Papa Jo) I best enjoy my tequila ice cold before breakfast on a Saturday.

Aside from the ability to make a bull elephant blind drunk in 10 minutes flat, tequila has the rather disturbing property of bringing out the animal in females of all kinds. While alcohol in general lowers one’s inhibitions, tequila somehow unleashes the beast in the ladies, me included. I have witnessed normally timid, socially inept, romantically hopeless girls (i.e. The Grinch) become ravenous man eaters after a few tequilas… not a pretty sight, I assure you. But interesting, overall...

For sheer rat-faced drunkenness, you cannot beat tequila. That warm, burning “oh shit!” feeling… 5 stars and my sombrero off to you!

STROH RUM

My personal experience of this stuff amounts to exactly one shot – that’s because I’m violently allergic to it! I kid you not, I, drinker of many tequilas, broke out in hives, started sneezing, streaming eyes, the works. However, I do remember that it also knocked me sideways and set my trachea on fire. And I have seen many a hardcore drinker projectile-chunder all over the nearest surface after only a shot or two. The proverbial stroh that broke the camel’s back, in JR’s case… I know only one man who takes honest pleasure in drinking the stuff, but nobody gets him, so I won’t even try. Disgusting. 5 stars for sheer brutality, but I say stick with tequila.

ABSINTHE

You thought five stars was as good (or bad) as it gets? Think again. I will never, EVER forget my first absinthe, consumed at a nameless bar in Hermanus long, long ago – largely because I don’t remember a damn thing after that! Despite it being only my second shot of the night. The stuff is pretty much pure alcohol, absolutely disgusting, highly flammable and guaranteed to f*** you up, no other way to put it! I still can’t understand why people will voluntarily drink this crap. You wouldn’t decant Domestos or industrial bleach into shot glasses and drink it, so why drink absinthe? Revolting, liver and soul-destroying, but even if it causes you to puke up your spleen, absinthe is one of those things you should try at least once in life. A gut-wrenching, unparalleled, 6 stars.

Well..... I'm still not completely sure why I, and almost everyone I know continues, and will continue to line up in front of bars in clubs and pubs around the world to damage and physically poison themselves, while paying good money for the privilege... but at least I now have 10 good, thoroughly analysed and rated reasons to do so! Cheers! ;)