As we boozehounds delve deeper into this endeavor called IPTB, and specifically our recent (poorly kept) secret project, I’ve found myself trying to pinpoint exactly what we’re actually trying to accomplish here. I mean sure, the blog is a poorly disguised excuse to imbibe on weeknights – in the name of research – but we’ve never quite put our thumb on the big whys. Why blog? Why booze? Why is this at all worthwhile? I still haven’t reached any concrete answers, and that’s fine, but last weekend I came a bit closer.
It was a Saturday night on the deck behind my parents’ house. Six of us sat in a small ring of chairs: my parents, my two brothers, Shanna and myself. In the morning my older brother was getting married. Between the six of us we had four $5 cigars and a bottle of Jameson. By the end of the night the bottle was empty and four burnt-out stubs were floating in a few inches of water at the bottom of a coffee tin. In the intervening time we had dug up old memories of growing up together. We talked about the bride-to-be (who sadly wasn’t present) and how glad we were that she was joining our family. We discussed work, the future, and all the other usual topics.
I couldn’t say that it was the booze that brought on that moment of near total contentment. The congregation of loved ones, anticipation of my brother’s connubial bliss, these certainly had more to do with it. But we sat outside that night to smoke cigars and drink Jameson, and the rest followed of its own accord.
Regardless of anything else we write here, what you drink will never be half so important as who you drink it with.