Reflections of a Survivior

I had my first taste of Whiskey when I was in the 4^th standard when my dad gave me a sip from the Whiskey he was having during my uncle’s wedding. It tasted so bad that I didn’t even touch another drink till I was in the 2^nd semester of my B. Tech. But by the time we completed 3^rd semester, with hundreds of pegs under my belt (or should I say in my stomach), I had became a seasoned drunkard.

I was not staying in the college hostel in those days. But during special occasions like college day, college union inauguration, hostel day, hostel union inauguration, cultural festivals, etc. we used to go to the bar for a drinking session or go bar hopping or get the liquor and other accompaniments to the hostel and get drunk there. The cardinal rule was that one should not be dry or sober on any of these days and everyone has to be drunk except for a few selfless souls who will remain sober to help the drunkards from having fun without getting into trouble.

The trouble with so many people with varying capacities drinking together is that some of them will get drunk and become very brave and adventurous. This usually happens to people who don’t know when to stop. They will get so drunk and feel omnipotent. Then they will want to bash up somebody, abuse the faculty members, go racing on bikes at night with the headlamps switched off, jump from the second floor, start a fight with the seniors or do many other such crazy things. A courageous and adventurous drunkard is a very dangerous person. A group of such people is DFD (designed for disaster). One cannot predict their actions and hence the need for somebody to watch over them. Even with all the precautions things used to get out of control on myriad of occasions.

During the vacation in 1986, I had to attend a one-week course in Project Management which was conducted in Madras. I have a cousin who had done hotel management in Switzerland. He was working at Taj Coromandel, Madras, as a restaurant manager at that time. Since I was new to Madras, I stayed with him. My class was from 10AM to 5PM. My cousin had a split shift. He will go to work by around 10.30AM and will come back by around 4.30PM. Then he will be off again at 6.30PM and will come back only after midnight. Since I didn’t know any places, and I was not in a mood for exploration (it was raining very heavily and Madras during a rain is a nightmare), I used to spent time nursing a drink from my cousin’s well stocked bar. One thing about these hotel guys is that you won’t starve in their houses. The fridge will be well stocked with all kinds of ready to eat food and the bar will have at least two or three brands of almost all kinds of alcoholic beverages. For instance, you could make delicious cutlets, samosas, chicken fry, prawn fry and so on, if you are willing to fry them. The frying pan, the oils, etc. will be available. All one has to do is to put the pan on fire, pour oil and get the things fried. You don’t even have to clean up the mess as it will be taken care by the housekeeper.

So I was having a royal time eating and drinking. One day I found a book titled Cocktail Magic on the bookshelf. Since I had nothing else to do, I started reading the book. I was introduced to the world of cocktails and I was hooked. I read the book in one session; then reread it. I realized that one could mix different types of drinks; mix them with fruit juices, black coffee, etc. I also learned that each cocktail has to be prepared in a certain way, served in a specific glass, garnished with specific things. For example, Screwdriver, a cocktail got by mixing 2 oz of Vodka and 5 oz of Orange juice had to be served in a “highball” glass, garnished with a slice of orange.

The next day, after I came back from my class, I asked my cousin to teach me how to prepare cocktails. He told me there are hundreds of them, but he would teach me a few of the most popular. The first one he taught was Screwdriver, which was followed by Bloody Mary (vodka + tomato and lemon juice + pepper and salt). Once he started making the cocktails and I was learning the trade and while we both were getting drunk, I realized why the bar was stocked with the different brands and different types of liquor and why there were different types of glasses in his crockery shelf. After about two hours of teaching and with enough alcohol to last a few days in our stomach, we fell asleep. My cousin missed his night shift and I missed my next day’s class.

Seeing my enthusiasm in learning the art of cocktail making, my cousin said that he will get me properly trained during his off day. Since my classes were only till Friday and I was returning home only on Sunday evening, we chose Saturday for the cocktail training. Saturday morning we started with a Bartender’s Bomb (60ml whiskey in a tall glass and top it up with beer). It is one hell of a drink. One moment you are standing on the floor and the next moment your are up on the ceiling! That day I learned how to make Vodka Martini (vodka + vermouth), Sex on the beach (vodka + orange and cranberry juice), Kamikaze (vodka + lime juice), Manhattan (whiskey + vermouth), Black Hawk (whiskey + gin), Satin Manhattan (Scotch whiskey + vanilla essence), Black Jack (scotch whiskey + lemon juice) and Hurricane (white rum + black rum + passion fruit juice + orange juice + lime juice). My cousin was so impressed with my enthusiasm that he gave me the book containing the cocktail recipes. His parting advice was “Alex, there are no hard-and-fast rules, if you don’t have all the ingredients, then improvise!”

Armed with the cocktail lessons and feeling superior, I returned to college. Then onwards, whenever we went to a bar or had an in-house drinking session, I only drank cocktails. Since getting fresh juices was difficult, I improvised. I used GoldSpot instead of orange juice; Limca was used instead of lemon juice and so on. At that time Pepsi, Coca Cola and other MNCs had not entered the Indian market; we only had Indian brands. In addition to Screwdrivers, Vodka Martinis, Kamikazes, we had our own ‘rum n cola’ and ‘gin n lime’, which were nothing but rum with ThumbsUp and gin mixed with Limca.

By the time we were in the 4^th semester, I had become an expert blender, making cocktails at will with whatever ingredients that was available. I think, I stretched the “improvise” part to the maximum as we were always short of the right ingredients. In the 5^th semester we moved to the CET hostel. In the hostel, where the objective of every drinking session was to get drunk as quickly as possible and to stay drunk for the maximum period of time at the least cost, nobody were interested in my fancy cocktails.

The CET hostel had its on cocktail recipe. It takes great courage, tons of determination, nerves of steel, balls of a Zulu warrior and titanium lined stomach to drink that concoction. I took a sip and had enough. Since I wowed not to drink that particular cocktail again, I was made the bar in-charge. My duties involved the preparing the CET cocktail, dispensing it and serve as the bar attendant distributing cigarettes, chips, nuts and chicken or beef fry. Regi was the hostel’s mess secretary and the mess employees to be in his good books will bring trays loaded with chicken legs and wings whenever there was a party. So getting the accompaniments was never a problem.

Now the cocktail and how it is prepared. Whenever we are having a party, everybody will pool in money to buy the drinks. A few of us will go and get the drinks. Since I had a Bullet (Royal Enfield 350), it was the vehicle used for transporting the liquor. The golden rule when purchasing was there should not be two bottles of the same brand. So we will buy whiskey, rum, brandy, gin, vodka and even wine of one or two of the cheapest brands available. Then we will also buy a case of beer.

The cocktail is prepared in a container that can hold 30- 40 liters. First the beer will be poured into the container, which is supposed to be the base for all other liquids that follow. Then one-by-one all the bottles—whiskey, rum, brandy, vodka, gin and wine—will be poured into the container. Once the ingredients are mixed well, it is ready for serving. Depending on the quantity and color of the ingredients the color of the final product will vary from dark brown to dark amber.

The cocktail is then poured into glasses and then served. The first glass is always the difficult one. People usually will down it in a single gulp after closing their nose and eyes. Irrespective of the person’s capacity, he will hit the roof almost instantaneously. If whiskey and beer is bartender’s bomb, then this will come under the category of a nuclear weapon. Depending on the person’s capacity and the potency of the drink, one would stay high or will crash down after the first few rounds. People who are drinking this concoction for the first time will usually last a maximum of 2 rounds, but there were exceptions. Seasoned veterans will only have enough to get them into the zone, and then will stay inside the zone by having booster doses at regular intervals. They will carry some with them in the hip flasks or water/beer bottles.

The only day when all the inmates of the hostel used to get drunk consuming the same brand (usually XXX Rum) was when the final year students gave their farewell party. It is a ‘liquor-only’ party and is usually conducted after the dinner. More about it in a later post…