Weekend Weirdness – Gin
It’s a Saturday night and I’m actually pleased to not be on a date. I’ve got good Pandora music on the speakers and an ugly dog at my side. As it is a Saturday, I’m having a fine gin and tonic with lime. The tonic water part is somewhat interesting (link below) and directly appropriate to me because I have malaria. You read that right. I have malaria. I picked it up while working on a wildcat oil drilling rig in the United Arab Emirates when I was a younger and more strapping lad. There ain’t no fever like a malaria fever. Ask me, I know.
In regards to gin, however, there is a much more interesting history:
…the principal cause of all the vice & debauchery committed among the inferior sort of people.
Sweet!
But after a couple of centuries, gin became the hallmark of civilized, anglo-saxon WASPs. Go figure. I won’t be rioting in the streets because the local liquor store is short of gin.
By 1743, the people of England were drinking 2.2 gallons (10 litres) of gin annually per head of population.
That’s some damned good gin-drinking, right there. My UK readers are gin-sots. Well, they were a couple of hundred years ago. Gin was the crack cocaine of the time. That’s kind of impressive considering that the spirited beverage is now an integral part of country and yacht clubs. Ask me, I know.
But there a huge problem with gin – drunk texting (serious link below).