The Beguiling Bottle

I'm not what you'd call a typical drinker.

But then again, no one wants to be a typical anything.

My introduction to alcohol might have been typical. My first recollection is of a small sip of cognac--I must have been about three, and very curious. Perhaps my parents thought it would put me off sufficiently for the next 18 years. But no, I actually liked the taste.

Ah, the taste. I remember an alcohol counselor coming to my eighth-grade social studies class and talking about the evils of those-OH groups. He couldn't believe that anyone enjoyed alcohol--especially Scotch--since it all tasted so horrible. Even at the tender age of 13, I silently begged to differ.

When I was 14, I spent several weeks in France with a family some relatives knew. Wine, and now and then something a little stronger, was de rigeur at dinner. How 'empowered' I felt when I bought my first bottle of cider at a roadside creperie! Was alcohol really the evil seductress whose wiles had long been eschewed by elementary school filmstrips? Again, I had to differ.

At the tender age of 16, I flew out to Vancouver, British Columbia to work in a chemistry lab for the summer. But I did not immediately realize that a paid job in Canada was not all that my dual Canadian-American citizenship could secure. Soon I was introduced to an entirely new sphere of alcohol consumption.

When you're hanging around with eight or 10 graduate students and you happen to look a bit older than 16 yourself, it's not hard to get served in Vancouver. In fact, it's hard not to get served. But how was I to know? I was still afraid of being carded.

In my first week at the lab, it turned out that a longtime post-doctoral fellow was leaving. We had the obligatory dinner in Chinatown and then made our way to a local piano bar. Not just any piano bar, mind you, but the one that advertised on almost every bus station bench in the city--two duelling pianos, four painists, "Great Balls of Fire" and the like. High publicity equals high security, I thought as I began to sweat.

But have no fear! I didn't even see anyone who looked as though they might once, in an idle fantasy, have thought about carding me. My first cocktail waitress ever--the first ever to serve me, that is--came to our table a few moments later. When she asked me for my order, I chose beer. A natural Canadian instinct, but that was not enough. I suddenly realized that I had to specify what kind of beer I wanted. "Gimme a Blue," I stuttered. Wrong, the grad students told me, everybody orders that their first time out.

Well, it was downhill from there. Beer and nachos, diaquiris and nachos, margaritas and nachos, margaritas and beer--these filled a few nights each week for the next couple of months. I found in myself a seemingly endless tolerance. Once a week the grad students played the faculty and everyone else (meaning me) in softball; the profs wouldn't even take the field until the beer came.

One night in Vancouver, I returned to my dorm and turned on a baseball game in our floor's common room. A guy I knew from down the hall was just leaving; he told me he'd left a few beers in the fridge after a party, and I was welcome to them. I sat and listened. The cold Kokanee Lager cooed to me lovingly, while legions of health teachers screamed back a volley of catcalls. "Don't drink alone!" they shrieked. I didn't.

I spent the next summer in Vancouver as well, having stayed dry for the whole school year. After imbibing liters (it's Canada, come on) of various fermented fluids, I finally got buzzed. Not by the sweet-tasting peach, plum, cherry or pear ciders that were so easy to chug down but still packed an eight percent punch, no. It was on my last afternoon in the lab, when we adjourned for beers. Four beers in less than half an hour was all it took to make me a little wobbly (hardly out of control, though) on the stairs to the bar.

A week after coming home, I felt a stronger sign of alcohol's rapturous tendrils. In the evening, lying in bed reading, I could taste it--pure alcohol, with a slightly sweet touch. I hadn't had a drink in days, but I could taste it as clearly as the first time. I resolved to control myself with an iron hand from then onward. After all, I didn't drink for any psychological effect--atypical drinker that I am--just for the taste.

A couple of months later, I came here. By this time, I knew enough to disregard just about everything my proctor said about drinking. Still, we went by the rules when we had our first party. It was a semiformal affair, complete with guest list and every earthly thing a Freshman Dean could desire. Our big mistake: buying beer. What a mess, what a lot of cans! We didn't have the cash for a keg, and who wanted that watered-down American piss anyway? Canada had spoiled me forever.

We resolved only to mix drinks at future fetes. With my superior knowledge of the bar, I became bartender, It is a post that I have cherished ever since. Minding the bar has been a constant pleasure; whenever people come by, they're happy to see me. Could you ask for more, even in a golden retriever?

Of course, not all my drinking has occurred within the confines of my own room. Hardly. One of my roommates and I made a policy of trying to get served, no matter where we were. It was worth a try, and if you didn't offer any identification when asked it was harmless.

There were other occasions, of course. An evening of dark Bacardi and Southern Comfort, gulped from miniature porcelain teacups in Grays, for example. As a first-year I played a certain House's waltz with a certain orchestra, and when the champagne ran out a certain master offered some of his own stock with the caveat, "Just don't tell anyone where you got it."

A similar waltz the following year led to more dire consequences. The tastes of that certain orchestra had surpassed champagne to more concentrated pleasures such as cognac and single-malt Scotch.

Needless to say, I experienced all three several times on that fateful evening of waltz conducting. I returned to my room after the post-waltz party, having walked a stumbling cellist home. At this point I still retained complete control of dexterous and psychological, but alas not intestinal, functions. I lay down in bed to read, hoping that Sir Walter Scott would wear off the Scotch. But the lines of text resembled the scrolling credits of a movie on fast-for-ward.

I did what any self-aware human would do. I proceeded to the bathroom and waited. It came, I felt better, I went to bed. I remember it vividly even now. At last I found where my physical tolerance ended.

This year during spring break, I brought four roommates back to my drinking milieu, this time represented by Montreal. In no nearby city can one have a good time more easily or for less money. In clubs, bars and cafes we drank with the abandon of those who know that most of the other American patrons are first-year barely pushing 18. We were much more legal than they were.

Back in Cambridge, I commented to my newly-legal roommate oh-so-politically-correctly about the wealth of "alcoholically-enabled" people we saw on our way to dinner. When we arrived at the restaurant, the hostess mentioned the enticing prospect of white peach margaritas. I couldn't resist. I had to play the game once more. I asked for a pitcher of said dreamy substance. "You all have ID, right?" she sighed boredly. "Yep," we said. And that was it. Soon, with that thrill that only the non-legal know, we too were alcoholically-enabled. Sorry, elementary school, you lost this one.