Drinking

I didn't need much time on my summer vacation to settle into a routine. I go away this time of year with my entire family - I am the youngest of eight and we all have kids so that means we are all somewhere in the mid-30s when we get together like this - so I need to make sure I leave plenty of time for drinking.

I don't know why, but I have had a hankering for daiquiris lately. I think I heard someone talk about them on a podcast recently, which planted the seed in my head. It didn't really matter because as I planned for beach week, I knew I had to make myself a fruity rum drink.

I think I hit the local liquor store about 10 minutes after I unloaded everything from the car. Naturally, I ran into some family members there. I got plenty of beer - a necessity - plus a bottle of rum and daiquiri mix.

After the first day, I found my niche. I would come home from the beach, throw some rum, ice and daiquiri mix into the blender and get the evening off to an early start while my wife got our daughter a bath. After drinking most of the pitcher myself, I'd switch to beer and ride that wave until I went to bed. We all have our drinks of choice when we get together. That's how we put up with each other.

All of this might not sound like that big of a deal, but introducing anything other than beer into my drinking routine is quite a change for me. I can't remember the last time I regularly drank wine or something with liquor in it. I generally don't have a problem with those kinds of drinks, I just don't like them as much as I like a cold beer.

I have pretty much had that point of view since I started drinking back in college in the hinterlands of northwestern Pennsylvania. Back in those days, if you wanted to drink, you better learn to like beer. Specifically, you better learn how to like Old Milwaukee and Genesee.

You would come across a party a few times a year with some grain punch. Even more infrequent was the "formal" event hosted by a fraternity or sorority where you could find a hard bar with a bunch of cheap liquor. A classy night back then involved getting a pitcher of kamikazes and seeing where that took you.

I do remember having a short love affair with gin-based drinks because some of my best friends in my fraternity were the social chairmen. They over-ordered on gin one spring for our famous gin and tonic miniature golf tournament so we spent much of the next fall finding different ways to get rid of the excess gin.

Once in a while, you did find someone with enough money at a bar to splurge on some shots. I tried to avoid those instances, but got caught in that trap more than a few times. That never ended well. In fact, I have a restraining order against tequila - the stuff isn't allowed within 100 yards of me.

Remarkably, my first-ever drunken night at college came from liquor as some friends and I stumbled across a party at a house where some juniors lived during my first week at college. A couple of guys at the party were on the wrestling team with me, so they invited us to come in and enjoy the special treat they had inside.

They had filled a huge cooler with lemonade and vodka or, as they called it Super Duper, Jet Launcher, Super Sonic Rocket Fuel. At least that's what I kind of remember them calling it. They made me repeat it over and over so I had it down by the end of the night, but the exact order of the words, like most of the evening's events, are pretty fuzzy more than 20 years later.

I went to a bunch of parties at that house and they never had the rocket fuel again from what I remember. Usually, they had a keg in the corner, just like most parties. So you got used to drinking beer. That hasn't changed for me. I have friends who choose a nice glass of wine or a stiff mixed drink over a cold one, but not me.

That's why I kind of found my hankering for a daiquiri strange. I have had tons of opportunities in recent years to turn down a bottle of beer for something else and never found a reason to do so. A week at the beach will do strange things to you.

Maybe I'll relax my usual routine when I get home and break out the blender on a hot summer day. But not if there's tequila in the vicinity. I'm not that crazy.

Brian Shea is probably enjoying a beer in his basement right now. You can contact him at columns@regularguycolumn.com.