Gagging For A Drink

As usual I cannot post in the right place....

I read the news item about Cocktails and folks trading up in the drinks stakes.

I used to work for a market research company into alcohol sales, StatsMR was the name until ACNielsen bought us out, I had 21 good years there. Since then my life has been a bigger and much more varied adventure.

I can remember when AlcoPops were invented, I seem to remember when my boss said they wouldn'd last. I was the shandy drinker while my learned friends were also great at drinking. And I mean great at drinking. We had a collection of spent bottles and cans which would impress any party animal, I suppose we had them instead of potted plants.  We really were great company, that's why we were bought up, and our folks became the bosses down at Oxford. The Oxford office of ACN was like a 6th form college with a sports field behind it. It really was like a club not a place of work, but that's another story.

As for alcohol it is a great thing, the first miracle was changing water into wine after all. I'm not much of a drinker myself, I was the shandy drinker at ACN, nowadays a random couple of pints  every few months or more is enough for me. I do think alcohol is one of Life's greatest gifts, it does relax it does mellow people, its as good as as taking your shoes off at the end of a busy day. Perhaps we should have shoe racks under the tables in bars.

Trading up is a good thing, a nice drink IS nice and if you can make it even nicer with an extra pound or two then good. I do the same thing myself, though in my case its cloudy lemonade instead of regular lemonade in Aldi; I even saw lemonade in glass bottles in Aldi, harking back 30 years or more, trying to create an upper class lemonade. I wish them well but that won't work, wine yes, lemonade no. My brother used to pee in the glass lemonade bottles because He knew I'd drink the dregs before trying to get the money back on the bottles, perhaps thats why I like bitter lemon.

Trading up in food is good too, I am lucky my Shanghai wife is a good cook, Eastern or Western, she's baking bread as we talk. I like my food too, see the photo for proof, breaking bread is first thing Man ever did, and sharing a meal is the thing that binds us even in or cannibal days. So  stock your freezer well.