to start

[by john]

the question comes, predictably, after the necessary rituals of hanging coats, tossing down napkins, and pouring water: 'what can i start you off with tonight?' no matter what current cravings are floating around my mind, i'm always paralyzed. order off the menu? revisit a classic? sample one of those top shelf bottles?

a couple weekends ago, i went down to craigie with my boyfriend. i had given a little pre-thought to the 'starting off' question, and had determined to try tom's vermouth. this hardly helped me decide on a first drink any quicker - tom informed me that he was making two vermouths in house, deflating my simple line of questioning. but he steered me towards the red vermouth, letting me try it as we parleyed back and forth, weighing options from a martinez to a negroni to a marconi wireless. after minutes of vacillation (my guy had already decided - 'something creamy'), i fell back on the touchstone of the manhattan. what better way to calibrate a sweet vermouth, after all?

and so i begin this blog with the same sorts of hesitations and false starts. i might as well start simply then. me: i'm john, a graduate student in physics, as are my cohorts, naveen and mike. intent: to write about drinking, drinking in boston, drinking on a grad student budget, and other things i haven't thought of yet. mike and naveen sits on the food end of the gourmand spectrum. we might even talk about science!

alright, those are enough ingredients for now; we'll see what literary equivalents of chartreuse, flaming orange peels, and absinthe drips come later...