Thursday, February 10, 2011

Age Quod Agis, Abe


Do what you are doing, even if what you’re doing is drinking. Barbara and I recently discovered, separately and then together, that having a cosmo while we’re doing anything else but having a cosmo is a waste of gin. To have one while preparing dinner for a crowd is to drink it in distracted sips until, before you know it, the drink is gone, and you didn’t even enjoy it.

I bet Abraham Lincoln would have practiced mindful drinking, if he drank. And the reason I mention it is because Barbara asked me to write something about Abraham Lincoln so she could do an illustration of him. From what I've read, Lincoln was a teetotaler, and in fact spoke against it at a Washington Temperance Society gathering early in his career. But that did not stop him from saying, when informed that General Grant drank whiskey while leading his troops, "Find out the name of the brand so I can give it to my other generals." He also said, according to a magnet I saw in a bookstore, "It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues." Which is why when Barbara and I get together on his birthday to have a quiet cosmo in his honor, I'll know he'd have approved.

5 comments:

Michele Hush said...

I fear you can only be mindful about drinking until drinking makes you mindless.

Mary said...

Very good point.

Thanks for commenting, and special thanks for commenting without using contractions. I do not know why certain punctuation marks come across in the comment column looking like the what comic strips use instead of curse words.

xom

Brian said...

There is a sign at the microbrewery in Wilmington VT (sorry I forgot the name, the hat is in Posy's car) that reads, "Remember, beer has food value, but food has no beer value!"
Words to live by, and easily translated into "Cosmospeak."
Also, since you didn't like "Anglopolitan," how about "Sloan Gin Buzz?" It's a riff on Sloan Square, a hipster site in London and the sorry old drink "Sloe Gin Fizz."
Really, ladies, how creative do you want me to be??

Brian said...

P.S.
Wait for the photo of Posy quaffing the night the electricity went out. OOOOOOHHHH Mama! I'll send it to Barbara from my cell phone!

Michele Hush said...

I went to a lecture on the history of McSorley's Ale House the other night (it was even duller than it sounds).

In perhaps the sole interesting part of this torture, Mr. Lincoln came up. Some believe he stopped at McSorley's after his Cooper Union speech. The historian-lecturer-brainkiller said this was highly unlikely, but also pointed out that in the 1800s, being a non-drinker might only mean you didn't drink hard liquor. So Abraham's teetotaling remains a question for the ages.