Tastes and tidbits

I can still very vividly remember my first taste of alcohol.

We were in Charlotte, North Carolina, for my parents’ missions orientation when I was seven years old, and we went to visit a Lutheran church one Sunday morning. Everyone was given communion, including the children, and to my surprise, it was red wine.

Ew.

It was really gross. I mean, yuck. Afterward, they came down the aisles and gave children fresh mint gum to chew, but I’ll never forget that first pungent taste.

So I was never really disappointed that my parents’ mission forbade them to drink alcohol (for many reasons). I never wanted to taste it. I was never curious about it. That communion totally turned me off to the stuff.

And when I went to a Christian college that forbade the drinking of alcohol, I thought that was super. I looked down on the students who broke the rules and sipped wine in secret. Not that I thought drinking alcohol was sinful. Obviously, Jesus drank wine (and turned water into wine). But each of us had signed a paper saying we wouldn’t drink the stuff, so it seemed not quite right to break the rules. I’ve heard many, many stories of what can happen from drunkenness, and I would never want to be around someone who is drunk (like the man who dropped his trousers and urinated in the middle of the Cincinnati Greyhound station when I was there at 2am in March 2005). So in college I was one of the happy non-drinkers.

After I turned 21 and was out of school on break, I let two CRC guy friends give me a taste of beer. I tasted it to be polite, but it tasted bitter and fermented. (I guess that’s the idea.) *shudder* Thanks, Jimmy & Ethan, but no thanks!

When I got out of college and moved in with a young and successful harpist, I let her persuade me to try some Baileys on vanilla ice cream. OK, I’ll admit it. That was darn yummy. It was yummy enough that I had it twice while staying in her home.

And it gave me enough courage to try champagne at my cousin’s wedding later that year, when my uncle coaxed me to at least taste it. It wasn’t so bad but not what I’d really want to drink if I had my choice. I’d much prefer Martinelli’s.

So when I visited a friend tonight for the season 3 premiere of Downton Abbey, I agreed to at least taste the sangria she’d made. I’m not a teetotaler. As you can see, I’ve had interesting run-ins with alcohol. But mostly I avoid it because of the flavor and because since moving to a very military part of the country, I have heard of so much calamity and disaster being caused by drunken behavior (including the drunk driver who—a couple months ago--ran into someone’s kitchen while the family was at breakfast).

But sangria wasn’t so bad. I was glad to only have a few sips, but it actually tasted kind of good. So maybe someday I will be able to stomach certain alcoholic drinks, if only to be polite.

Cheers to new experiences.