Raise Your Glass

This weekend Mr. Lipstick and I ate some Chinese food and drank some plum wine. It is the only kind of wine that I like, largely due to an unsophisticated palate and a profound lack of interest. I would like to be one of those people who knows what year is great and what year is just good and which year the frost hit the grapes too hard, but I guess the bottom line is that it all tastes weird to me...except plum wine. I'll just leave the being cool to Candlelight and More Wine Please.

I remember my mother and my grandparents ordering plum wine at this wonderful restaurant from my childhood called Jade East. In my memory, it is the most chic restaurant in history. It was red, cozy, with low-lighting from Chinese lanterns. The tables were covered with white tablecloths, and I was too young to know that an establishment can only be so chic if there is plexi-glass covering said white tablecloths to allow for easy clean-up. The best part, besides the memories and the food, was the booths. Each had its own alcove and its own lantern. I loved it. Anyway, they would let me taste the plum wine. It was mostly the suggestion of a taste since the glass was empty, but I felt special nonetheless.

About two or three glasses into our plum wine this weekend, I started thinkin' about drinkin'. College/grad school drinking in particular. Funny how that sort of drinking is very distinct in that you usually don't care about anything except the level of alcohol content. You can just keep going and going since you don't care what time you wake up in the afternoon because you have no real responsibilities and no little humans depending on you yet. After all, you can just drink off the headache.

The last time I really (and I mean, really) drank was the eve of my thirtieth birthday. Some friends of ours had a relative who worked for Jose Cuervo and managed to obtain some black-label, super top-shelf tequila. This stuff had no burn, no bite, and went down as smoothly as iced tea. Do I really need to tell you that I drank it as if it were iced tea? After sleeping all night curled up on the bathmat, I awoke with the worst headache EVER. Daddy gently reminded me that the Bible clearly states that, "strong drink is raging, and anyone who is deceived is not wise." Well, I was quite deceived, and most definitely mocked by a decidedly unsympathetic Mr. Lipstick.

Thinking about that story made me want to create my personal top-ten list of adult beverages that have deceived me. I know this sort of thing varies quite a bit by region so I can't wait to hear your past vices (shameless plea for comments).

Here goes:
10. Zima
9. Bartyles & James
8. Beringer's White Zinfandel (remember calling it "white zin"?)
7. Wine in a box
6. Smirnoff Ice
5. Mike's Hard Lemonade
4. Bombay Sapphire
3. Tequila
2. Jagermeister
1. Everclear

I hope you all have a fabulous Monday!