I hadn't seen Ronnie in years and the young whippersnapper (his words) was now back in Boston to attend his 50th College Reunion, but first a stop in his old home town to visit his high school friend. Me!
Hey, Ronnie! Come on in! Are you hungry? Would you like some coffee and cakes, or a late lunch?
Well, said Ronnie, actually, it's time for drinks!
I cook, but I don't serve drinks, so I was a bit at loss as to what to offer.
What do you drink, Ronnie? (He wasn't drinking in high school when I knew him; just stepping on white bucks! (Click this link to read 'TURN THE OTHER BUCK'.)
Scotch will be fine, he answered.
Okay, said I, a teetotaler; let's look in the liquor cabinet. And look we did, but there was no scotch in sight. I offered him Knob Creek Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey aged 9 years (I didn't know the difference), bourbon that I use to make Bourbon Apple Cake, but that would not do, he said. So I decided to run up to my husband's office and ask him where the scotch was. My husband was a bit in shock, as I've never asked him for a glass of wine, much less a bottle of scotch. Oh, it's down the cellar, he answered, at the end of the shelves on the bottom shelf. So down the rickety old wooden cellar stairs we went, Ronnie and I, trying to find that unopened bottle of scotch -- no light in that corner except from the distant & dirty cellar windows, the accumulation of years of living and years of dying and still no scotch. But find it we finally did, in the deepest darkest corner, still in its original box, priced at $29.95 (10 years ago?) Here's a photo of the bottle, just to prove it!
I'm good with anything distilled from grapes except for sticky sweet stuff. Grappa and Armenian cognac are my favorites. My parents did not drink a lot. We drank a small glass of wine or an occasional beer at dinner. They didn't drink much hard alcohol; my dad an occasional snifter of cognac, my mom an occasional highball. I must have inherited my taste for cognac from my father. My Mom used Virgin Islands withe rum for making rum balls.
ReplyDeleteOver the years friends and business acquaintances gave them bottles of whiskey which never drank much of.
My dad passed away early on the morning of St.Patrick's day of 1989. After the funeral my decided to sell the house in Hopkinton. We seat about sorting through things, a project wich took three years. My dad had been one of the champion pack rats of all history.
We began with the kitchen closet. I found a bottle of Irish whiskey which a college friend of mine had give my parents, and which had barely been touched. A little later, our neighbor, Tom Connoly stopped by. I said "Tom, I got present for you." As I handed him the bottle of whiskey he boomed out "Well is that luck of the Irish or what?"
My mom enjoyed an occasional beer, but she couldn't hold alcohol. When I used to visit her after my dad passed away, she would say "let's split a bottle of beer!" That way she could drink one glass without having to waste the rest of the bottle.
Three years ago when I was coming back from vacation in Europe I had a nigh time layover in Dublin. Ireland. I took the airport bus into Dublin. The driver and a couple were very friendly. As we approached the center of Dublin I saw things that I had read about when I was a kid; O'Connell St., the GPO, the Liffey ect. As we approached Grafton this fellow asked me "Do you have a drink?" I didn't. He reached into his pocket and handed me a nip of cognac.
Now was that the welcome to Ireland or what? And he knew my drink.
Marko Pasha