I was lying in bed at 0300 wondering what my
next blog would be. I have several
topics in mind, but none fully developed. When fighting insomnia, my mind often
drifts back to past careers, usually nursing. This free thought in the wee
hours led to today's blog on taste and potables.
When
thinking of "nursing" and "drink," simultaneously, the
obvious link is abuse of alcohol rather than the occasional cocktail or glass
of wine. Truly, I can tell horror
stories about the excessive intake of intoxicants but preferring to preach
moderation in all things, today's blog is less about drink, than taste.
As an RN on
a pediatrics floor, I adopted the
practice of tasting the oral medications that I administered to my patients.
This helped me anticipate problems and come up with creative ways to mask the
taste of most, but not all, unpleasant drugs.
The worst, and least palatable, was prednisolone liquid. It taints everything that you put it in or
on, leaving you with a greater volume of yuck for the patient to deal with. In
one study, close to 20% of the kids taking it vomited; not from
allergy, or adverse reaction, but rather from perceived nastiness of taste and
mouth-feel. I can vouch for this from personal experience and, I would like to
state for the record, that there is a world of difference between having a
child upchuck on you, and having an adult who has been intemperate do so.
As a side
note, there are many medical studies in the literature that do relative taste
comparisons of drugs within a class, many of which are practically
interchangeable, however physicians seldom seem to read those articles and have
an instinctive knack for selecting medications most foul.
When it
comes to drink, whether we are talking soft drinks, beer, wine, small batch
gin, single malt scotch, or mixed drinks, taste is an interesting topic. We
enjoy sharing descriptions, both verbal and photographic, of savory repasts, of
tasty drinks and memorable spirits. There are many sites like TripAdvisor that
let us share on a grand scale.
As with
religion, many people espouse their personal taste as the only true taste and
display a marked superiority and intolerance for others whose taste is
different.
Hard-core
scotch worshippers are a good example, with all their talk of single malts, whether
taken neat or with a splash of water.
Personally, while I think Laphroaig Cairdeas is about as good a scotch
as any I have tasted, I prefer scotch in mixed drinks – Oh heresy of
heresies! I would rather have a "Mamie
Taylor" or a "Cameron's Kick Cocktail" than a pour of any fine scotch. As an added
incentive, any scotch-based mixed drink does as well using a cheap scotch like
Clan McGregor as it does with its pricey upscale cousins.
Recently,
seeking new "old" drinks to try, I have made several that range from "I don't care for this"
to "This is pretty awful" and would like to share one from each end
of the spectrum.
The first,
an “I don’t care for this,” is from a classic text, The Flowing Bowl - What and When to Drink, by Willie
Schmidt. Published in 1892, it is a great collection of recipes as served in the "Gay 90's"
(a moniker originating when gay still meant light-hearted, not an orientation).
While I found most recipes in the book decent or better, the "Gin Puff" is one
to have had for the sake of having.
Having had two, it is hard to imagine desiring a third. The first was
made using small batch Hendrick's, a dry gin, the second with Hayman's Old
Tom. The Old Tom preparation was
slightly better but fell a long ways from good.
My best
guess is that the Gin Puff was one of those "hair of the dog"
concoctions designed to clear a “morning after” fog, rather than a drink to be
had while the senses are still acute.
The
all-time winner of the "drink so bad you wouldn't serve it to your
mother-in-law" award has to be the "St. Barbara." Saint Barbara is the patron saint of almost all
occupations involving fire or explosives.
While it appears in one of my German cocktail books from the early
1900's, the choice of ingredients would suggest that this drink is English in origin, containing scotch, absinthe and Worcestershire in equal parts. One may surmise that the St. Barbara may have been
the regimental toast of the Queens Own Cannon-Cockers or the "dare you to drink this" initiation
beverage for the Grand Order of Powder Monkeys.
One rule of
making mixed drinks is to only use quality ingredients. To every rule there is
an exception and the St. Barbara is one. Using quality ingredients is
pointless. Being out of Clan McGregor scotch, I substituted 12 year
Glenlivet. That did not help. The
concoction tastes like anise flavored Worcestershire.
Paired with a nice meat loaf, or lamb and
leek pie at your favorite English pub, the St. Barbara might work in tiny sips with a
mouthful of food. I have no desire to test it further.
Despite the
number of questionable liquids that I have consumed (including gasoline while
siphoning), or mixed, including those above, I have yet to find any as vile in
taste as that prednisolone of bygone days.
