Dearest Rum,
I know what it’s like to be the Villain, my friend.
Awful. And glorious. Yes.
Gin gets a lot of credit. There’s something 19th-century British about writers drinking gin; it’s almost as if we didn’t know gin was bad for you back, then, it was too civilized.
(Yet what’s REALLY civilized is single-malt Scotch, and if there’s anything more disreputable than a Scottish writer, I don’t know what that is. Read Robert Burns’ couplet on female sex organs, and then come back to me, rolling your eyes – but don’t you dare, darling, tell me I told you so. I know I told you and, as is normal, you didn’t listen.)
What really deserves the vilification? Single-malt Scotch. It’s classy. It’s strong as anything. It’s somewhat famous. And it will get you drunk – not like Everclear, which doesn’t intoxicate you, so much as it sneaks up on your non-dominant side and delivers a blow to your parietal lobe – but it’s effective.
But single-malt Scotch? You can get schnickered, then knackered, then fighty, then non-conscious, and it all looks classy until the point where you fall off your stool. And even that looks okay if you adjut your tie afterwards.
I can’t help it, though. Rum formed an alliance with Coke back when it was full of cocaine, and after that, how can we not drink a rum + dark soda without figuring we’re off taking an ancient stimulant which scarcely ever made people get into gunfights except every couple of hours back in the 19th century?
Why is the rum gone? Because I ain’t no liquor snob, that’s why.
Hail to thee, Rum. I don’t need a license or permit to put you into my system, yet I dare general anesthetic to do half your job.
You make me a Pirate King, and that’s slightly less evil than the demonic overlord of a vast and corrupt Empire seeking to take over the World.
So you’re a force for good, right?
By default, anyway.
