poll: alcohol prefs?

Allison left for California today! Jodi and I will be hooking up with her next Thursday at the Conchord hotel.

Our visit to Niagara-on-the-Lake was great; many thanks to Ginny for taking Jeff and me every year. We had lunch at the Hillebrand Estates winery, saw Candida (by George Bernard Shaw, part of Shawfest), dinner at another restaurant whose name I can't recall. Today's photos are from lunch, and the photo and the bottom is a close-up of my dessert. :-)

Really enjoyed the play. Wonderful writing and acting, an amazing set. The entire two-act play took place in one location, the living room of an old house. In our age of zillion-dollar movie budgets, this might sound dull, but it wasn't. In fact, I found the performance far more engrossing and enjoyable than I did many of this summer's movies. It definitely shows you how effective good writing can be.

But back to wine and other types of alcohol. I confess that this particular topic is dedicated to Bill Sutton, a friend of mine with an unusually heightened appreciation of beer, and Andy Beaton, a friend with an equally heightened appreciation of Scotch. :-)

I've never liked beer, with one exception. I once participated in a beer tasting experiment conducted by friends and discovered that the beer I hated the least was also the weakest beer, in terms of alcohol content. The only time I've ever liked beer was when Jeff and I visited the Theakston brewery in Masham, near the Yorkshire Dales, with some friends. We went to a nearby pub ("The Black Swan", I believe), and I got to sample some Theakston's Old Peculier from the keg. Yummy! Didn't taste like beer at all.

When we got back home, I tried some canned Old Peculier and was mightily disappointed; it tasted like beer (ugh).

I don't drink that much alcohol in general, mainly because I tend to fall asleep after imbibing in even a small amount. Very dull, really. Also, my face gets red and sometimes I feel sick to my stomach.

I've only been drunk twice in my entire life, as far as I can recall. The first time was on plum wine, in the late 1980s. My friend John Swain was the one who introduced me to plum wine, at a Japanese restaurant. I liked it so much that I went out to an LCBO one afternoon and bought two bottles. It was my first time in an LCBO. I remember feeling guilty, as if I was doing something terribly illicit.

Anyway, I drank an entire bottle of plum wine by myself while I cooked my dinner that night, not fully realizing that this was probably a bad idea. I was sharing an apartment with Michelle Sagara and Tom West at the time, but neither of them was home. Our friend John Chew was over visiting, however.

Later that evening, Jeff came by to see me, asked where I was. Apparently the conversation between Jeff and John went something like this:

John: "She went to bed. I...er...think she's drunk."

Jeff: "DRUNK?!?"

John: "She said something about the room spinning..."

I didn't get drunk on purpose, I swear. I just really, really liked the taste of plum wine. Sadly, for several years after that experience I really, really hated the taste of plum wine.

My other experience with inebriation was even more embarrassing. Jeff and I went to Mono Cliffs pub with some male friends to hang out (including Parki). Jeff and the others were involved in some kind of pseudo-drinking contest, or perhaps they were only talking about drinking contests; I can't recall. I got very bored, sitting by myself in one of the booths waiting, so I ordered a glass of white wine. They were still going at it by the time I finished, so I ordered another. I got halfway through, and then I fell asleep. Jeff had to take me home.

Those friends have never let me forget that particular evening, and deservedly so. :-) I never got drunk again.

Apparently 50% of all Asians have a high sensitivity to alcohol. Obviously, I'm one of them. Supposedly it's because I have a slower-than-normal enzyme in my ethanol catabolism. When people drink alcohol, our livers try their best to clean up booze-laden blood. Ethanol is converted into acetaldehyde which is converted via an enzyme called aldehyde dehydrogenase to acetate. Apparently many Asians' aldehyde dehydrogenase enzymes are slower than normal in the conversion process. The result is a build-up of acetaldehyde, which can result in a flushed face, nausea, "drunk" effects.

And I completely do not understand why people like Scotch. Jeff has a bottle of 18-year-old McCallan's at home, which is apparently a particularly good type of Scotch. I tried some once, and felt like scrubbing my tongue with sandpaper a few seconds later. AUGH, how can you people DRINK THAT STUFF?? Yuk, phtooey, gross.

But enough smalltalk, I want to hear your opinions.

Poll: Do you drink alcohol? If not, why not? If so, what do you like drinking?

What kinds of beer do you like? Wine? Boozy coffees? Liqueurs? Do you cook with wine? Are you horrified when people drink white wine with a beef dish? Are you a wine snob? Scotch snob? etc.