Expensive Tastes

We stopped by to pick up some beer for the holiday weekend - since we have houseguests who may want a cold one after househunting, we figured we'd cater to all tastes. We don't usually drink beer -- we're oenophiles (winos, that is), through and through -- but we keep a few bottles of beer around for barbecues and such.

And we're beer snobs. Microbrews and imported stuff only. I honestly don' t like beer...except Smithwicks. Tried it in Ireland and was hooked. I've tried some others and still don't really like them (I'll drink Grolsch, but it's really only for the cool bottles). Anyway, our local liquor store actually ordered Smithwicks specially for me. Yes, I'm spoiled.

So, we had dinner with friend of ours last week, and were discussing "expensive tastes". They mentioned that their son R (our housesitter!) only likes to drink Pellegrino foofy imported sparkly water and has expressed the sentiment that he "only likes Smithwicks" (after tasting it at our house) and that he preferred that over any other beer.

We all laughed, and noted that we all had expensive tastes when we lived at home and mom and dad bought the delicacies, but our tastes certainly changed when it was our own hard-earned pennies shelling out for the six-pack. Certainly, R's tastes would be "adjusted" when he had to pay for them himself.

Which got the Adorable Husband and I to thinking -- perhaps we should encourage expensive taste in beer. If you won't drink the half-water swill that most college students drink, wouldn't you be less likely to overimbibe? If you're shelling out ten bucks for a six-pack, you're not going to gulp it down in the volumes necessary to induce vomiting, like you would a pack of Schlitz, right? Maybe it would lower the incidence of college-student drinking parties if drinking your favorite brew meant that you didn't get to buy food or pay the heating bill or put gas in your car.

If you're willing to drink stuff that's four bucks a case, you probably will drink it. A lot of it, if I remember college students accurately. If you're unwilling to sully your delicate tastebuds unless it's imported german lager in hand-labelled and wax-sealed bottles lovingly brewed by buxom women in traditional farm-maid outfits, you probably aren't going to spend your nights with a beer bong.

Maybe it's a good thing.