Category: Food and Drink

Drinking with friends and the Diocletian Test

Do you have a totalitarian impulse?

Ask yourself: “Do I think the government’s goals or aims should take priority over human nature?” Put another way: “Do I think the government’s noble end justifies a bad means?”

The Diocletian Test

In the fourth century, the Roman Emperor Diocletian faced a serious problem: lack of food. One of the reasons: farmers were abandoning agriculture and moving to the cities. The farmers were abandoning the farms because economic prospects in the city were far better and, in many cases, farming couldn’t sustain them and their families.

Diocletian’s solution? Serfdom. Require the farmers, and their kids, and their kids’ kids, and their kids’ kids’ kids, and so on for a millennium to stay on that specific parcel of land and farm it. If you abandon the farm for something better, you die.

The government had a goal (better food production) so it overrode a natural human trait (seeking economic improvement).

Diocletian’s solution, combined with a lot of other reforms, worked, incidentally. It saved the Empire at a time when contemporaries thought the whole thing was falling apart.

Do you applaud Diocletian’s establishment of the institution of serfdom (which, most people agree, was merely a better form of slavery, but still slavery)?

If so, then you can probably assume you have the totalitarian impulse. You, in other words, flunk the “Diocletian Test.”

The Diocletian Test Today

Shift to COVID.

Do you applaud the lockdowns?

If so, I’m afraid you flunk the Diocletian Test and might have the totalitarian impulse.

When it comes to lockdowns, the government has a goal (combat COVID . . . whatever “combat” might mean) so it overrides a natural human trait (to be social . . . we are “social animals,” even the introverts … Read the rest

The first Christmas card

Tis the season . . . to get kids drunk.

The very first Christmas card showed a young child drinking mulled wine. It was 1843, the year Dickens’ Christmas Carol came out.

One of the works of art proved very popular, selling out its first edition in six days (from December 19^th to Christmas Eve).

The other work of art wasn’t quite so popular, producing such a backlash of outrage that no one even tried to produce another Christmas card for three years.

My only question is, how do they know the kid was drinking mulled wine? It looks like an ordinary glass of wine to me.

I’m guessing they just assumed it, since mulled wine is a traditional Christmas drink.

I’m not sure I’ve ever had it. I’ve been looking at recipes, though, and am thinking I’ll have to make some this holiday season. I’ve kind of been on the wagon lately for health reasons, so this might be a nice bridge into drinking this holiday season.

If anyone has recommended recipes, please email them to me.… Read the rest

Black Wednesday looms, though I’m not sure I should refer to it as “Black Wednesday.”

The decadents think it’s a shortened version of “Black-out Wednesday,” but it’s not. It’s a play off “Black Friday,” which is “black” because retailers turn huge profits that day. “Black Wednesday” is black because it turns huge profits for bars.

But not this year.

One of my bar clients told me this week that he had been eking along, breaking even over the course of the year, hanging on for Black Wednesday and the following three weeks, which are his biggest weeks of the year.

And Whitmer has shut him down.

“For the public good” you say?

I don’t want to turn this week’s “Drinking Matters” column into a screed (this column is supposed to be a celebration—joyful—not a critical jeremiad), but if you believe these shutdowns are a good idea, please consider the other side and the impressive mound of counter-facts.

A great place to start is The Tom Woods Show. Tom has pretty much destroyed the notion that these lockdowns are a good idea. He doesn’t deny COVID is a risk (though he disagrees it’s as dangerous as the Whitmers of the world want us to believe). He just denies that the lockdowns make any difference . . . and presents the facts to prove it.

If you don’t listen to podcasts, you can try his free e-book about lockdowns. I haven’t read it, but it looks pretty good. (You’ll probably have to give Tom your email address in order to get the book.)

So what good drinking news is out there?

Plenty. For starters, we are on the eve of festive drinking. I’m a fan of Zen drinking: by myself, contemplating, maybe a book in … Read the rest

But I miss the bars

“There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.” Samuel Johnson

Like Samuel Johnson and Alicia Bridges (see title), I like a good bar.

Heck, I like many bars. I love a good bar.

COVID, of course, has crippled the bar scene, which has hit me pretty hard.

You see, I’m a religious guy. I like to worship.

I’m pantheistic in my approach. God, for me, isn’t found only in the brick-and-mortar church sanctuary. God is everywhere.

Oh yeah, to be sure, he’s found in some places better than others. I believe He is present in every church. I also think He’s present in other people and acutely present in the poor.

I also believe he’s present in quiet places. It’s a belief that goes back almost 3,000 years, to the time of Elijah:

A strong and heavy wind was rending the mountains and crushing rocks before the Lord — but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake — but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake there was fire — but the Lord was not in the fire. After the fire there was a tiny whispering sound,” a “still and small” breeze, and then the Lord spoke, “Elijah, why are you here?”

I’m a silence monger. I seek it wherever I can find it. On the worst winter days, you’ll often find me outside, taking in the silence born from forcing the world indoors.

On a weekday afternoon, you might find me in a bar, taking advantage of the dead period — that time from, say, 1:30 to 4:00 — when the bar has virtually no customers. The lunch crowd … Read the rest

Brews you can use

Ah, yes. Three of my sons, post-wedding Mass last Saturday. It was, after all the struggles and cost, a glorious day. That’s Alex, the groom, to the far left, then Michael and Jack to the far right. The other three guys are school chums.

Yes, “chums.” I’ve been thinking a lot about P.G. Wodehouse lately after Econtalk’s Russ Roberts jokingly said he considers himself learned because he knows the “G” stands for “Grenville.”

For awhile, I read a lot of P.G. If memory serves, my editors at Touchstone recommended him as one of the finest prose stylists of the 20th century. He was also a younger contemporary of GKC. It seems a lot of people involved in “the Chesterton game” (Gilbert Magazine, the American Chesterton Society, etc.) were PGW fans as well.

I don’t recall ever hearing that Wodehouse and GKC hung out, but I suspect they would’ve gotten along well. Both were funny and both liked to drink. Isn’t that always a good match?

Wodehouse referenced GKC a few times in his fiction, including this one which is pretty funny:

At that moment, however, the drowsy stillness of the summer afternoon was shattered by what sounded to his strained senses like G.K. Chesterton falling on a sheet of tin.

If you’re acquainted with GKC’s huge girth, you realize that must’ve been one really loud noise. The mere fact that Wodehouse used the analogy testifies to (i) GKC’s popularity back then, and (ii) public consciousness that he was a huge man.

P.G: Funny Booze Writer

This is one of my favorite articles of all time at Modern Drunkard Magazine:

Plum Brandy

A salute to the incomparable–and largely inebriate–man of letters, P.G. Wodehouse.

It’s a rarity: short, easy-to-read, cultured,

Booze Coke

I don’t know if I’m surprised because it’s Coke or because it’s the first Coke product with alcohol: Coca-Cola launching its first alcoholic beverage next year.

It’s going to be an alcoholic version of its Topo Chico sparkling water.

I’d love to comment more, but I don’t listen to Judy Garland or drink sparkling water.

I’m content with rum and Coke or vodka and Coke. If I’m feeling randy, I add a lime wedge.

Pot Booze

Cannabis beverages are getting rolled out next year.

I tried one (stripped of its hallucinogenic properties) while at the 2018 marijuana convention. I wasn’t impressed by the taste.

But I am intrigued by this development. I have long maintained that marijuana is substantively different than booze because you can’t “dial in” the buzz. You go from 0 to 60. So you never slide from sober, to enjoyable relaxation, to venial sin, to mortal sin. It’s just, wham, mortal sin.

If there were a way to slide into the buzz more, then maybe it would be alright.

Cannabis beverages might be the ticket. When I spoke to that one vendor back in 2018, he said that was exactly the market they were looking for.… Read the rest