What is your favourite drink? It is folklore in my family that when I was sx months old, my eldest brother Frank was left on babysitting duties by my mum. I had been a very sickly baby, being born six weeks early, spending my first few weeks in an incubator. My mum was always paranoid that I'd get ill and drop dead when I was a baby. But by the time I was six months old, I'd put on some weight and was a bit of a fatty, she felt secure enough to have a night out and leave frank in charge (Laurie, his twin was at boarding school learning to be a Catholic priest). Frank was sixteen. Unfortunately for Frank, my sister Catherine, who was fourteen and had helped mum with childcare duties, was out with her mates, so Frank was solely in charge. This was OK until about ten o'clock, when I awoke, hungry and grumpy. I did what babies do. Frank hadn't a clue what to do. But he soon figured out a solution. The story is that my Mum and Dad returned from their night out to find me and Frank sitting happily on the sofa watching Match of The Day, Frank with a hot steaming mug of tea, me with a bottle full of lovely milky, sugary tea. Mum panicked and tried to grab the tea off me, to which I screamed the house down. Eventually the bottle was returned. Mum told Frank that if I died it was all his fault. From that day, a cup of tea became my beverage of choice. I gave up sugar in tea for lent in 1968, when lent finished, I found sugary tea undrinkable. I stopped drinking tea with milk in 2011 when I was diagnosed with Prostate cancer. I usually drink it with a slug of pomogranate juice (which reputedly stops cancer). But I got to thinking, what is my favourite beverage, I realised that I had different ones for different settings.
Here is my full list
1) A nice cup of tea - my drink of default at all times.
2) A pint of Hophead bitter (as sold by Mill Hill Services Club, accompanied by banter with my friends).
3) A Tanquerie Gin with Fever Tree Elderflower tonic ( my drink of choice when I come home after a hard day).
4) A nice glass of Black Stump 2017 Shiraz ( a pleasant tipple to accompany a barbeque).
5) A cold bottle of Lucozade Orange (but only when I have a hangover).
6) A pint of Guinness (best supped in my Mum's front room, which sadly can't happen anymore, or at The Pogue Traders Xmas gig at the Dublin Castle).
7) A pint of Seafarers at the Artillery Arms near Finsbury Square with my mate Frank the Scouser.
8) A pint of Orange Juice and Lemonade at the Three Hammers after a sunny summer evening kick about in Mill Hill Park.
9) A pint of Kingfisher with a tasty curry in the Mill Hill Tandoori.
10) A glass of Tsing Tsao beer with a Chinese meal in the Good Earth in Mill Hill.
All this talk of food and drink has made me peckish! I think I'll have a cuppa with a bacon sarnie (Made from the finest bacon from Boucherie Gerard in Daws Lane).
Have a great weekend.
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