Normalising Mediocrity
Or, Choosing Drinks Wisely
I forget exactly what my first experience of alcohol was, but I remember early on drinking Johnny Red, trying to mix it with a juice, possibly a berry, maybe blackberry- I remember it was black- and choking down the result because I didn’t want to waste it. That wasn’t fun.
I remember tasting beer and thinking, how do people like this? In those days, before the explosion in craft and artisanal beers, it was probably something generic like Tooheys. It was bitter and yuck.
I remember trying wine- most likely a red- and having a very similar reaction. It may have been in a plastic cup. I don’t remember the vineyard or the variety.
I remember drinking mixers. They were all right. Then I tried some vodka and was disgusted by the chemical taste. No wonder you had to mix it with soft drink, I thought. This stuff is gross. It’s like drinking paint. Or pesticide.
At that time, being a poor student living on about fifty dollars a week after rent (what you do is, you buy mince and celery and carrots in bulk, then you make one batch of stir fried rice to last a week, lunch and dinner; oh, and canned tuna sandwiches are amazing) it did not occur to me that the price might possibly reflect the quality.
I was essentially a teetotaller until several years after marriage, when we went on an anniversary trip to the Hunter Valley, a district north of Sydney renowned for its vineyards. Visiting cellar doors can be an interesting experience. We were fortunate at the first one to have a winemaker who was also enthusiastic about teaching people new to wine how to drink it. We learnt to swish the glasses, smell the bouquet, hold the liquid in our mouths and wait for the impressions to emerge. It was great fun and the most important lesson for me was: it’s a good wine if you like it.
Armed with this knowledge, I proceeded to revisit the alcoholic beverages I had dismissed in my callow youth. It turns out that beer can be subtle and fruity, or clear and strong, or malty and smooth. It turns out whisky is tolerable in an Old Fashioned. It turns out that vodka can taste smooth and warm and subtle.
You just need to pay more.
Initially I felt a bit guilty about this luxury, because I have been raised thinking that we were poor (we weren’t; my parents came from peasant stock but they worked extremely hard not to stay there) and spending more than the absolute minimum is unthinkable. Realisation has come slowly that perhaps it’s not so much that the cheapest item is the baseline and anything more than that is unnecessary luxury, but that the baseline is a fair bit higher and in order to sell more to people who normally wouldn’t or couldn’t afford it, companies make something superficially resembling the original but actually so inferior that it is essentially something different altogether.
An example: You can buy cask wine for around two dollars fifty a litre. That stuff tastes like grapey vinegar, but worse. It does the job, if the job is to get drunk, but it’s not a pleasant way to get there.
Or, you could spend sixty dollars a litre on something that you actually enjoy drinking. Assuming your alcohol budget remains stable, you would have to drink a lot less, and a lot less frequently. But that’s not a problem if you’re drinking for enjoyment rather than intoxication.
We need to stop calling cask wine “wine”, though. It’s not really the same thing at all. Nor is the turpentine sold as vodka actually vodka. Lowering one’s standards to include mediocrity deceives us into thinking that mediocrity is normal. It’s not. It’s mediocre. Normality costs a minimum, and if one wants to pay less, then don’t expect normality. Don’t call it normality either. Just say that you enjoy buying mediocre alcohol.
Also, I still haven’t learnt to like whiskey. Whatever I try it’s unpleasant. So either I’m uncultured or whiskey drinkers, like my husband, have tortured their palates into submission. There’s no accounting for taste.
So am I a hypocrite? Yes, probably.
Remember, if you like it, it’s good.
Tastes change. Ten years ago the smell of Walker Black would make me retch. Today? I drink it straight. But post-pandemic it's list it's appeal, the product changed. Now you need to get Double Black to get something like Black but I won't spend the money on it. But whiskey isn't whisky. Rye, Bourbon, scotch Japanese, all different. I like a good peaty scotch, smoky, complex. Laphroaig is like drinking a campfire. Irish whisky tends to be sweet. I hate Jameson but black label has a great carnelly flavor that I'm almost sure isn't artificial. Jameson aged in stout barrels is delightful. And I've come to appreciate Mezcal, though it's hard to find a good one that's smoky otherwise it's just tequila with a different Agave.
I do love a good Añejo but generally I find Tequila too sweet and my hangovers align with this, I only get headaches when the sugar level is high or there's just so much.
But again, tastes change. I couldn't stomach any of it before, now I'm a premium alcoholic. I don't drink mixers and avoid beer. It's the carbs you see.
And the expensive stuff isn't always the better stuff, I've had pricey wine with tons of nitrates and cheap wine go down smooth. But if your vodka comes in a plastic bottle or your whiskey has an ingredients list, beware.