I've been on record as saying that I generally disapprove of the cocktail as anything but a concept. If I'm going to drink, I generally go for spirits that haven't been augmented beyond recognition. Maybe it's just because I'm an inveterate lush, but nothing agrees with me more these days than straight liquor. I'll admit that most of my casual drinking habits still surround whatever comes out of the bottle unmolested by fruit juice, specialty liqueur or other esoteric ingredients. That doesn't mean I'm ready to take up the mantel of the purist. I've come to appreciate the cocktail as a novelty, something one drinks on special occasions or on nights dedicated to such tarted-up concoctions. I still have rules, though.

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I'm more likely to turn my nose up to a drinking game than indulge in it. Most drinking games are at best an excuse to do something you were going to do anyway and at worst an ill-advised collection of bad ideas that will almost certainly result in porcelain worship. Really, the majority of drinking games are just logical conclusions of bad drinking behavior. Take beer pong, for instance. It's a game that takes the inherently vile experience of chugging cheap pilsner and makes it somehow more disgusting by adding a dirty table, a wet ping pong ball and the hands of drunk strangers. People ought not to drink cheap pilsner anyway, but beer pong just makes it worse. Movie drinking games are only marginally less stupid. Sure, taking a shot every time Character X says Catchphrase Y will get you drunk pretty fast, but this seems like a classic case of the whole diminishing the parts. This game both distracts from the movie by reducing it to the search for a single component of it, as well as distracting from the (potential) pleasures of drinking. If you want to do shots, then just do shots. The game seems both unnecessary and less fun than it ought to be. But there is one drinking game I'm willing to endorse: Shot Roulette.

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People love telling myths about alcohol. I don't know what it is about the stuff, but it's the subject of more tall tales than perhaps any other substance on the planet. Every long-time bartender has some entirely fictional story about how the Margarita was invented by a lovelorn Mexican poet who named it after the woman he could never have, or how Jack Daniels whiskey is the result of an epic Civil War era odyssey that nearly ended in the destruction of the original recipe for bourbon. It's easy to get dragged into these stories, perhaps because we want to believe there's something special about the things we drink. I suppose that's why the lies concocted about absinthe in the late 19th century persist into the modern day. What was once a smear campaign designed to scare people away from The Green Fairy transformed into the granddaddy of all psychedelic legends. It's almost too bad that none of it is true.

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Played in its most simple incarnation, the game of roulette has some of the best odds in any given casino. In the American version of the game, which has 36 numbered slots and 2 zero slots (the 0 and 00 as opposed to the European single 0 layout), a player who only bets on red, black, odds or evens has a 47% of winning. Even if the payout is ridiculously small, it beats losing money. During my first trip to Las Vegas, I kept those odds in mind. I've never gotten much thrill out of gambling, so the prospect of winning small and easy appealed to me much more than the thought of taking home the jackpot on a long shot. While my travel companion settled down for what I would classify as an inconsiderately lengthy tenure at the poker table, I decided to try my hand at the little wheel. Seated at a $5 table, I put the minimum on black and promptly lost. The laws of probability on my side, I tried the same thing again and watched history repeat itself. That's when the calm voice of reason in my brain stood up, cleared its throat and produced a rather well-drawn graph of a recent individual cost/benefit analysis concerning the relative merits of staying at the roulette table or adjourning to casino lounge for a drink, both of which would have cost roughly the same amount of money. Five minutes later, I had a glass of scotch in my hand and no regrets.

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I believe in tequila. That's bigger than just liking the taste or appreciating the unique features of the drink. There's something downright spiritual about the finest application of the agave plant. As much as I respect the honest camaraderie of whiskey and trust the conversational chemistry of vodka, as much as I love the romantic devotion of good wine and the unpretentious company of beer, tequila is the only drink that has ever felt downright religious to me. That's why I don't feel particularly broken up about my current lack of tequila on Cinco de Mayo, it's unofficial saint's day. Today, I don't need tequila, I don't feel compelled to consume it. I've had enough days when the certainty of tequila was necessary that I've stopped looking at it as a party libation or a pain delivery device. Tequila is sacred stuff and just like everything else holy in this world, it has been besmirched and co-opted for nefarious ends.

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Back in the particularly panicky period of American history when some of the most absurd people in the nation convinced Congress to ratify the 18th Amendment to the US Constitution, the majority of the alcohol consumed in our silly country was produced in less than optimal conditions. Bathtubs in some guy's basement, homemade stills in mob-run warehouses, barrels in the backwoods where nothing but moonshine ever flowed before. Needless to say, the products of these operations were pretty unpalatable, thus the cocktail was finally embraced wholeheartedly by the drinking American public. I suppose most of us never lost the taste for alcohol mixed with anything that would make it taste like anything other than poison.

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a neutral party

filtered to the nth degree

plays well with others

Last year at the GQ Awards, singer Lily Allen had an on-stage, on-camera row with Sir Elton John brought on by her quite literally shameless public drunkenness. Allen even went so far as to bring an entire bottle of champagne to the podium with her, refilling her glass at least once before the award went out. Does anyone remember what the award was or who won it? Hell no. Everyone just remembers that Lily Allen wore her intoxication on her shiny, sleeveless dress and had a few choice words for a knight in Her Majesty's fabulously musical service. There was something beautiful about that moment. It was two sides of the lush coin showing at once, even colliding. Who you see as the hero in that instant is as good a personality test as the long form Myers-Briggs.

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Cliches ought not to be taken for granted. After all, they became cliche by being common enough for everyone to recognize them. Unless you're one of those hopelessly corny idealists, the first thing that pops into your mind when thinking of family gatherings is excessive self-medication with unholy amounts of holy libations. Why do we drink until intoxicated when we're around our extended families? I don't think it's as simple as dysfunctional behavior. There are layers to this ritual.

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As some of you might have noticed, I didn't get a chance to live blog my St. Patrick's Day experience, but believe me when I say that it wasn't for a lack of trying. I had the damndest time getting drunk on St. Pat's, and though I'll have to consult a Catholic about this, I'm pretty sure that has got to be some kind of cardinal sin. My original plan involving a bottle of Irish whiskey took a back seat to the insistence of friends. No, it wasn't another intervention. I think that may be scheduled for a three-day block in mid June. Rather, my friends on various plots along the average sobriety spectrum insisted that I join them out in the world for what was promised to be a respectable night out of relaxing self-harm. It didn't go so well as that, though.

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