Eye Openers
12/10/06 08:13
“First today,” the
old man liked to say, and it was usually on the way
home from work. He wasn’t averse, however, to having
a quick one on the way in in the morning,
particularly if it was below zero and his calendar
included, as it often did, changing brake shoes on
trains. Outside. His eye opener was a shot of Jim
Beam, water back. The water was in lieu of an Old
Style, because mornings call for a little restraint.
Eye openers. A sacred, if dying, tradition--at least in America. French cement finishers still greet the dawn with a thimbleful of marc—a clear grape spirit made from the stems and seeds left over in the wine factories and aged for as long as it takes to get a funnel in the bottle. The Italian version is grappa, and one of the great wonders of the booze business is how they managed to convince American stockbrokers that it was worth $25 a shot. Had something to do with those fancy bottles is the conventional wisdom. Portuguese grape pickers are allotted a similar morning tot with a name that translates as “bug killer.” Seems to do the job.
Every culture makes something like this--the Irish call theirs poteen, and here in the land of the free we actually have a legal name: Corn whiskey. The distillers call it white dog, and it’s what drips from the copper coil. The blessed distilleries of Scotland used to have a tradition of called the “dram queue,” when everyone in town lined up in the morning (and several times during the day) for a taste of the local product fresh from the still.
Now I’m not recommending that you greet every sunrise with a glass of something raw. There is danger down this path. I once spent an unfortunate summer working the graveyard shift at a Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago. (“Graveyard shift,” by the way, was coined in the 19th century for the middle-of-the-night hours of cemetery guards hired to keep medical students and necrophiliacs from stealing newly interred bodies. We like you to know these things so you have some bar conversation). After work, at 7:30 a.m., my colleagues and I would adjourn to a saloon across the street, where we’d settle in with some Polish cleaning ladies to wash the dust of cancelled checks from our throats. And to watch a parade of freshly shaven guys in suits stride up to the bar for a couple of double shots of vodka on their way to the office. To wash the thoughts of the next eight hours from their minds, I assumed.
You do not want to be one of these guys. If it sounds reasonable to you, you need to learn this line: “I quit.” On the other hand, you don’t need to become someone whose only morning experience with a drink is a mimosa. That, if you don’t do brunch, is Champagne and orange juice and it’s a waste of good Champagne, or would be but for the fact that at most people’s brunches it’s a waste of cheap Champagne. You may continue to drink bloody Marys (although I think you’ll find them improved if you use gin instead of vodka) and you might even want to up the ante with the occasional Ramos Fizz—egg whites, milk and gin shaken to death until they froth, topped up with a little seltzer—to impress your friends.
But the real case here is for the occasional eye-opener, not the Sunday brunch quaff. The shot to start your heart when you’re facing an arduous day. This does not mean that you have four meetings before noon. It means that you’re about to do something hard. If you, like my father, regularly remove large metal parts from railroad engines in the snow, this would be a good reason
If you don’t, then a two-foot snowfall counts; you don’t want to dig out a car alone. Painting your apartment is a perfect excuse, particularly if you’ve put the arm on three friends to help—it’s only polite to give them a little something to start on. Moving day—because you need some encouragement for carrying all those boxes. Funerals call for a little bracer to prepare for the grief and honor the deceased.
And weddings count (see the reasons above). Plus you’ve got five or six hours of dressing, posing and church-going ahead of you, so you’ll need your strength.
So when the occasion demands, embrace the snort. Honor the eye opener, the little bracer for when you need bracing. My own vote goes for a shot of Irish whisky before the coffee: it goes without saying that bracers are taken standing up.
And that “first today” turns out to be an old Irish toast for just such moments. Feel free.
Eye openers. A sacred, if dying, tradition--at least in America. French cement finishers still greet the dawn with a thimbleful of marc—a clear grape spirit made from the stems and seeds left over in the wine factories and aged for as long as it takes to get a funnel in the bottle. The Italian version is grappa, and one of the great wonders of the booze business is how they managed to convince American stockbrokers that it was worth $25 a shot. Had something to do with those fancy bottles is the conventional wisdom. Portuguese grape pickers are allotted a similar morning tot with a name that translates as “bug killer.” Seems to do the job.
Every culture makes something like this--the Irish call theirs poteen, and here in the land of the free we actually have a legal name: Corn whiskey. The distillers call it white dog, and it’s what drips from the copper coil. The blessed distilleries of Scotland used to have a tradition of called the “dram queue,” when everyone in town lined up in the morning (and several times during the day) for a taste of the local product fresh from the still.
Now I’m not recommending that you greet every sunrise with a glass of something raw. There is danger down this path. I once spent an unfortunate summer working the graveyard shift at a Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago. (“Graveyard shift,” by the way, was coined in the 19th century for the middle-of-the-night hours of cemetery guards hired to keep medical students and necrophiliacs from stealing newly interred bodies. We like you to know these things so you have some bar conversation). After work, at 7:30 a.m., my colleagues and I would adjourn to a saloon across the street, where we’d settle in with some Polish cleaning ladies to wash the dust of cancelled checks from our throats. And to watch a parade of freshly shaven guys in suits stride up to the bar for a couple of double shots of vodka on their way to the office. To wash the thoughts of the next eight hours from their minds, I assumed.
You do not want to be one of these guys. If it sounds reasonable to you, you need to learn this line: “I quit.” On the other hand, you don’t need to become someone whose only morning experience with a drink is a mimosa. That, if you don’t do brunch, is Champagne and orange juice and it’s a waste of good Champagne, or would be but for the fact that at most people’s brunches it’s a waste of cheap Champagne. You may continue to drink bloody Marys (although I think you’ll find them improved if you use gin instead of vodka) and you might even want to up the ante with the occasional Ramos Fizz—egg whites, milk and gin shaken to death until they froth, topped up with a little seltzer—to impress your friends.
But the real case here is for the occasional eye-opener, not the Sunday brunch quaff. The shot to start your heart when you’re facing an arduous day. This does not mean that you have four meetings before noon. It means that you’re about to do something hard. If you, like my father, regularly remove large metal parts from railroad engines in the snow, this would be a good reason
If you don’t, then a two-foot snowfall counts; you don’t want to dig out a car alone. Painting your apartment is a perfect excuse, particularly if you’ve put the arm on three friends to help—it’s only polite to give them a little something to start on. Moving day—because you need some encouragement for carrying all those boxes. Funerals call for a little bracer to prepare for the grief and honor the deceased.
And weddings count (see the reasons above). Plus you’ve got five or six hours of dressing, posing and church-going ahead of you, so you’ll need your strength.
So when the occasion demands, embrace the snort. Honor the eye opener, the little bracer for when you need bracing. My own vote goes for a shot of Irish whisky before the coffee: it goes without saying that bracers are taken standing up.
And that “first today” turns out to be an old Irish toast for just such moments. Feel free.
|