The New Curse of the Drinking Classes

I can just about tolerate being asked if I'm old enough to drink (oh, don't be so bloody stupid, look at me!) and I get mildly offended if I have to prove it by showing some form of identification (no, I never carry it; you'll just have to believe that I'm the same guy you've been serving here six nights a week for the last year), but I draw the line absolutely at being rubber-stamped. I will not let it happen and I recommend to everyone that you resist too. You could develop some awful skin complaint that could make you unable to drink at that bar ever again. What is this, 1984? What next, barcoding? No pun intended.

Other responses that have worked for me in the recent past, when ID has been demanded: "No, thank you. I'll have a gin and tonic WITH LEMON." It works, but I think that it has something to do with my commitment to having that gin and tonic being far greater than the bar person's commitment to believing that I am underage.

Yes, it's very clear that I'm stubborn, bloody-minded and intransigent. Er... that just about sums me up. Cheers!

G & T with lemon

FARB (Famous Author Rob 'Buy My Books Dammit' Byrnes recently inspired me to ramble on about lemons and limes as a result of my reading his Confessions of a Former Pop Drinker. My point is simply this, and it can't be repeated too often in the hope that it will eventually sink in: gin and tonic should be served with a slice of lemon, never with a slice of lime. An abundance of London gin (which is the usual kind that people drink) should be poured over ice. Fizzy tonic water should be added (to a certain extent, but you don't want to drown the gin), followed by the squeeze of a lemon. Delicious.

Which gin to use? Boodles or Malacca if available, which is rarely. Beefeater is exceptionally drinkable, and Bombay Sapphire is fabulous and mixes very well. Never drink Tanqueray unless it happen to be Tanqueray Malacca. For tonic I prefer Schweppes in a little bottle. Those soda-pop guns that are used in bars get contaminated by such other fluids as soda water, so you never can be sure what's mixing with your tonic and your gin, but as soon as you taste the drink, you'll know that it's got a little something else. For those cocktail emergencies that occur, it is acceptable to serve Gordon's with a generic tonic.

If you've only ever tasted 'g & t' with lime, you haven't tasted it at all! I've poured enough of it down my own throat that I know the good of it (to paraphrase George Bernard Shaw).

Er...mmm...no, wait, it'll come to me

For the third time today, I have forgotten whatever is was that I was about to do. I don't know if it's fun, important or even work-related, but I do know that each time I've remembered what it is (albeit fleetingly), I've realized that it's the same thing I keep forgetting, and before you can say Bob's your uncle I've forgotten it again! Bring on the ginky booloobah! Hey, could it be that it's a computer thingy, and I've been meaning to commit bloggery? No. That's a ridiculous thought. I would never do that. Oviously it's not just my memory that's fading.