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The A/D system

20 Feb 11 | Re: A new approach to drinking

I have hit on a great new approach to dinner drinking. Instead of drinking beer or wine with your meal, cut these out in favour of an aperitif and digestif and take only water with the food.

The benefits are many. The aperitif prepares your palette and gets you in a convivial mood, but you still keep a nice, clear head during dinner so that you can sparkle conversationally and appreciate the food. After you’ve eaten, you can then fully enjoy a nice whisky, ginjinha or Jägermeister, or two or three, with no worries about whether you’re OK to have another one.

What’s more, I find that these days it tends to be beers and wines that are mass-produced and can be variable in quality, whereas spirits and liqueurs give you the good stuff as standard.

Further, beers and wines have both tended to get stronger in recent decades, throwing serving conventions established in previous years all out of balance. Spirits, liqueurs and fortified wines, on the other hand, have remained the same and will still synch up perfectly with your meal.

In all, this seems to me to be a very civilised approach. Of course, if there is a particularly good or well-matched beer or wine around, you can still have it if you like. But I am seriously considering making the A/D system my starting position. And now I have shared it with the world - not a bad contribution to civilisation for a Sunday afternoon, I hope you’ll agree.

Posted by SHIRLEY TEMPLE at 14:06

PS Be assured, though, that if you come to mine for dinner I will still offer beer or wine with the meal, and welcome those who bring it.

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