MY FIRST REAL DRINK

All of the recent booze-blogging by Acidman, Pawpaw, and, most recently, the Velocimeister his ownself, got me to reminiscing yet again.

This time, it was about my First Real Drink.

Well before my high school discovery of Southern Comfort. Well before the infamous Drunken Miami Lunch...but that’s another story.

It was New Year’s Eve, 1961. My parents were out, having left me in the care of the teenage girl who lived across the street. On their way out the door, they did the incredible, giving me permission to fix myself a drink with which to celebrate the New Year.

Now: What to drink?

I dragged out our dog-eared copy of The Joy of Cooking and searched eagerly through the mixed-drink section. (That book had everything). What’s this? A Brandy Alexander, you say? What’s that have in it? Brandy? Crème de Cacao? Cream? Sounds good to me!

A digression. Many years later, She Who Must Be Obeyed and I were in Houston at one of those big “Taste of Houston” foofaraws at the (old) Convention Center. It was one of those deals where all the restaurants had set up booths and you would go around from booth to booth, sampling the various wares. Face-stuffing fun. As we were sitting at our table, a fellow from Schepp’s, one of the local dairies, brought us a nice treat: individual Brandy Alexanders, sealed up in little thermoformed cups – like those coffee creamers, except holding a good four ounces. He left a whole fuckin’ dairy case full of the little bastids, and we proceeded to get sloppily, deliciously wasted on Brandy Alexanders. It’s a miracle we didn’t puke our brains out that night...but that is one tasty beverage.

Back to 1961.

So now it’s getting to be about 11:30 or so: the Zero-Hour approacheth. Time to make my drink!

Brandy. Hmmm. Well, there’s B&B in here, which is Benedictine and Brandy. Close enough.

Crème de Cacao. Got that.

Cream. Nope, no cream. Hey, how about that Crème de Cacao? That’s “cream,” isn’t it? Close enough.

So, into an Old Fashioned glass goes a liberal slug of B&B and two liberal slugs of Crème de Cacao. Stir. The resulting Evil Brew bore no resemblance whatsoever to a real Brandy Alexander, of course, but what did I know at the time?

And when that ball dropped, and it was 1961!!! it was drinkin’ time. I promptly guzzled that whole sumbitch right down. It was kinda sorta tasty, too.

And, Damn! if I didn’t feel seriously woozy. Because, after all, I was all of eight years old.

What the hell was I thinking? For that matter, what the hell were my parents thinking?