My Drinking History

College professors with tenure have god-like abilities to do what they will.  At my college in the ‘80s, it was hit or miss on whether a given teacher would be particularly interested in teaching on a given day. 

An example was our English composition prof in which at least three classes were devoted to the delicacies of exotic foods. We didn’t ask why since we were freshman. On our last day he even brought in sushi for us to try. 

Being of Irish heritage my sensibilities have always reflexively been against elitism and snobbishness so I took it upon myself to teach our teacher. I wrote my first essay about the delights of McDonald’s quarterpounder with cheese, saying that it was on par with the tenderest filet mignon. Embarrassing in retrospect but the professor inadvertently taught me that you need to write for your audience, in this case him: he gave me a C-. The next paper I wrote on a neutral topic and got an A. He said my writing had markedly improved. I bet. 

So naturally I was similarly skeptical about any expensive beers or liquors. Just the tried and trued Budweiser lager, the McDonald’s quarter pounder of the beer world. Even trying a Miller Light felt  ‘daring’. It was about 8 years into my drinking career before a friend had me try something he called ‘Guinness with training wheels’, which was half Guinness and half Budweiser. Guinness is hardly that risky since it’s not any more bitter than Budweiser and probably has less calories. The fear factor was simply due to the color being black!  Rank prejudice. 

I was content with adding Guinness to my drinking repertoire and liquor never tempted, especially after having too much tequila during the ’89 Bengal Super Bowl appearance. It would be about a quarter century before I’d try that again. 

Budweiser and Guinness were my happy mainstays for about thirty years until the craft beer boom started. It was around 2011 when out of curiosity tried a pale ale, nothing too wild or hoppy like an IPA. And I liked it well enough, it had a lot of flavor and was a bit “spicy”. For the next couple decades I left pilsners behind for the most part.  

And then, not out of snobbishness but for weight control mostly, I experimented with bourbon as a supplement to beer. More bang, fewer calories. And I found I liked the taste and the different interesting varieties...

In short, I fear I’ve become my old professor.