So I have been writing about food for about 25 years, and teaching food history about a dozen or so. And somehow I've always been able avoid thinking about consuming whatever I'm writing about. A survival strategy. In fact I've so successfully managed to separate food at work from hunger that I never eat lunch. Just breakfast and 12 hours later dinner.
But for some reason the history of alcohol class I'm writing now is completely different. After writing about some spirit for a more than a whole day, then talking about it, there is nothing I want more than to drink it. Wednesday was cognac. Monday was whiskey. YES, and I had to have them all. Monday with be absinthe. You can see what I was doing today! Am I really that impressionable, or just a garden variety dipsomaniac? I don't even like vodka. Really. No flavor or aroma. It's just watered down grain alcohol. What's the point? So what could have possessed me to buy this? The passages from Tolstoy and Bulgakov. Listening to the folk song about Stenka Razin who got drunk and drowned his new Persian bride, and dredging up my freshman year's worth of Russian. And you know what, I still don't like it, but it must be consumed. хорошо?