To all the alcohols I've loved before

Plus: Dry January

Happy Friday mixers!

We’re at the January finish line, can you believe it? I hope everyone is staying either warm or safe from the LA fires (or both, I guess).

I wrote an essay on friendships this week that I intended to send out today, but once all was said and written, I decided to pitch that essay out instead. When pitching stories, outlets often prefer that your story hasn’t been published anywhere else, including on a personal blog like this. Of course, pitching doesn’t at all guarantee that my essay will be published, so you may all get to read it on this platform at some point anyway. Until then, fingers crossed the editors I pitched the essay to like it and want to publish it!

Instead, as January comes to a close, so does my Dry January and that is what sparked what you will read below. If you did Dry January too, leave a comment below on how it went—I wanna know!

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Ina Garten/me during Dry January.

This is my third Dry January in a row. People often ask why I decided to do it, and really it’s because I wrote an article about Dry January one time and figured I’d give it a go.

There are a number of benefits of Dry January, or not drinking in general, like better sleep, clearer skin, and weight loss. Those sounded good to me, but I didn’t go into my first Dry January with explicit goals. I called it an experiment and let it go. Any benefits or results were added bonuses at the end.

I don’t remember if I experienced any of the physical benefits. Instead, its main impact on me was a bit more mental. It was indeed an experiment, but instead of my skin or sleep being under the microscope, it was my behavior and how I felt about this change. It was a challenge to say no to alcohol for a whole month especially when so much of my social life involves drinking. I’ve been drinking happily and socially since high school, and have rarely been one to turn down a good time. But for January, I had to turn down offers for drinks. At first, I thought it would be weird to hang out with friends who were still drinking while I wasn’t. And sure, I didn’t know what to do with my hands without the ease of picking up and putting down a glass to fill a moment. I needn’t have worried, though. I ended up having fun nonetheless, although it was a different type of fun where all my mental faculties remained intact.

A Brief “Spiritual” Interlude¹

Since high school, I’ve drank almost everything that’s been put in front of me. Over the years, I’ve discerned which of these beverages I like and don’t like, but of course, I’m still learning. Anyway, here is an abridged history of my years of active discernment.

Tequila

A few weeks ago, I took a shot of tequila, and considering the way it reeked when the bartender first brought it out and the way its taste lingered in my mouth for minutes afterwards, it’s a shock that I’m not dead.

During college and for years afterwards, I thought I wasn’t meant to ever drink tequila. I avoided margaritas and opted to take vodka shots instead any time shots were proposed (to others’ horror and disgust). (I am slightly gagging as I write this.) I figured I was a Mexican anomaly, a freak for whom tequila was a death sentence. Until a few years ago, tequila signaled a wild and fun night, and absolute hell the next day, vomiting up everything I’d ever eaten or drank and shaking from dehydration in my bed or on a friend’s couch until a full 24 hours had passed and I could resurrect to party another day.

Then, a few years ago, my Mexican-American dad urged me to try a tequila he really enjoyed and thought was “smooth,” whatever that meant. The smell of it was enough to bring me to my knees, but I was willing to try. Lo and behold it was sort of smooth to drink, but I knew the real test would be how I felt the next day. I woke up like Snow White to birds chirping, the sun shining and no hint of an ache in my head. I couldn’t believe it. HOW had I survived the devil’s liquor??

After weeks more of experimentation, I had my answer. My dad, with his grown adult money, was able to buy real tequila. It wasn’t necessarily top shelf, but it was far from whatever well swill I had been drinking. I learned that it was cheap tequila that would take me out for days at a time, #NotAllTequila. I began to sound like a huge bitch whenever tequila came up, explaining that actually I couldn’t drink the cheap stuff, I needed to be drinking the pricey stuff in order to live.

I’m no longer as afraid of tequila as I once was. I’m comforted knowing now that most restaurant margaritas will be made with something better than what college kids can afford. And that if I ever have to buy my own, it’s better to choose from shelves above my 5’ eye line.

Vodka

When I was a sophomore, I pledged Phi Sigma Sigma Fraternity (fraternity only in name though, it was a full on sorority). A week or so in, I started receiving gifts from my then-anonymous “big,” or big sister, who had access to alcohol that I certainly didn’t have yet and one day blessed me with a gift basket that included a handle of Burnett’s raspberry-flavored vodka. Score! This meant I could bring my own liquor to a pregame now. I eagerly mixed my new vodka with a mini raspberry Simply Lemonade bottle. Taste barely mattered to me as a 19-year old sorority pledge, so I dutifully gulped it all down and got trashed.

The morning-after shakes and vomiting, however, were another story. I couldn’t even get out of bed to reach my Brita filter for the reviving liquids I desperately needed. What was wrong with me??? Everyone else seemed to be faring at least somewhat better from the texts I was getting. It took hindsight and commiseration with others years later to recognize that drinking sugary Burnett’s could only ever end in misery.

Beer

The first drink I ever had (that wasn’t a sip of my dad’s wine at the dinner table) was a Tecate at a high school party. Classy. Back then, the taste was bitter but fine; now, Tecate is fine because it doesn’t actually taste like much.

All through college in upstate New York, I barely saw a Tecate can but was instead, surrounded by Bud Light, Genessee, and frat kegs of unknown contents. I, of course, didn’t care what I was drinking as long as it got me drunk and made me look cool. Once my friends and I turned 21 our senior year was when the beer world opened up. Turns out Rochester had some pretty good microbreweries and I got to explore ales, lagers, stouts and sours well beyond the light beers I’d been drinking.

These days, beer is a spring and summer drink to me. I start craving those cold, crisp bubbles the moment the temperature reaches 65 degrees.

Wine

When I was 17, I told my dad, a wine lover, that I wanted to start getting into wine, too. I’d had sips of his wine at dinner and found them okay but mostly bitter and kind of gross. So he started me on a Zinfandel, a pinkish concoction that I at once found both too sweet and also delicious. I felt the height of sophistication. At some point, I graduated to full pours of the reds he was drinking, although I had to backslide to economy-sized and priced Barefoot wines while in college.

Now, much like my dad, I love a glass (or two) of red with and after dinner. It just really ties the day up nicely sometimes. And in the warmer months, there’s nothing like a glass (or two) of bubbly to fit the light, summery mood.

Now Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Sobriety

It is very easy to explain away why you’re not drinking with Dry January as your reason. People often nod knowingly and tell me how brave I am for doing it, or excitedly exclaim that they’re doing it too. Without that excuse 11 months out of the year, it’s often less cool or understandable to skip out on drinking. But I’ve found that since my first Dry January, it’s been a lot easier for me to say no. That first time showed me not only that I have it in me to say no, but that turning down a drink while already with friends doesn’t have real repercussions. I thought I would look or sound weird to those still drinking, but they’re my friends and they didn’t care! Crazy, huh.

My second Dry January was a breeze, but I did break three times this year. The first was a complete accident; I had relatives in town and only when the Brooklyn Lager I had ordered was set down in front of me did I remember that, oops, it’s January 2nd and I’m not supposed to be drinking². The second time was intentional and quite unavoidable—how am I supposed to go to a White Elephant party that promises holiday punch without partaking in said punch?? No regrets. The third and final time was similar: a pre-planned hangout with two besties who I see every couple of months and celebrating one of their engagements. I intended to abstain, even after we decided to meet at a bar. But the morning of, I said fuck it and you know what? I have no regrets because we all ended up at a karaoke bar in KTown, and if there’s one thing about me, it’s that I never regret a karaoke.

1. Why are liquors called spirits anyway? Is it because if you drink enough, you will be reunited with all your dead loved ones???

2. My uncle and I did end up ordering a second round, because family!