Six wineries, two distilleries and one cidery later, I drove the long country road back to St. Bonaventure with tannins on my breath and the calm of the Finger Lakes on my mind.
“I cannot rest from travel,” I thought to myself, reciting the words of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s famous poem Ulysses. “I will drink life to the lees.”
My weekend at the Finger Lakes awakened the senses to an experience of drinking completely foreign to the usual “Thirsty Thursday” party scene on campus. As college students, we think we have mastered alcohol. We buy the cheapest liquor and lightest beer. We never drink for taste. In fact, we relish in the nauseating flavor as if we have discovered some glimpse into adulthood. After countless shots, we binge drink ourselves into a mindless stupor until we’re bent over our porcelain thrones. Masters indeed!
I’d venture to say that for many Bonaventure students, drinking is a brutish sport; a competition between yourself and an inevitable blackout. The problem is that alcohol is not a trophy to be won or an obstacle to be mastered; it’s an opera house ablaze with the timbre of cellos and violins; it’s the brush strokes of a van Gogh or Monet; it’s a walk down a Paris street. Drinking is an art to be reclaimed.
There’s more to alcohol than simply drinking. With every tasting at the Finger Lakes, I learned something new about the drink in front of me. What was once something simple is now a blank canvas upon which layers of smells, tastes and emotions come to rest.
With every sip, you come to recognize the progression of flavors rushing into your mouth. Every hint of grapefruit or nuttiness hits the tongue as if from separate drinks married together in perfect harmony.
Drinking needs a renaissance on college campuses. Every weekend, students go out and consume immeasurable amounts of alcohol without a care in the world for what they are drinking. This kind of selfish consumption disrespects even the cheapest and poorly made drinks.
Instead of getting trashed this weekend, try a drink and enjoy yourself for a change. Make drinking less about yourself, and more about the beverage in your glass. Cheers.
gruditj15@bonaventure.edu
