Crocktails

I’d like to know when we got too fancy to drink White Russians and B-52s. (I [heart] White Russians.) When did we get too uppity to have ice in our glasses and little sippy stirrers from which to drink? Is a drink really better in a glass shaped like a tornado funnel cloud? That’s difficult to drink from? Without ice to keep it chilled (which makes you drink it faster so that soon enough you feel like your head is being whipped around in a funnel cloud)? I guess somewhere someone decided it’s not very sophisticated to drink out of a rocks glass or a double old-fashion. But licking colored sugar off the rim of a glass that makes your lips blue? Well, oh yeah. Stay classy, lady. (For the record, I hate the word classy, but that’s another post.)
Really.

When did we abandon mixed drinks for foofy cocktails and martinis that aren’t really martinis at all (if there’s anything in it other than gin and vermouth) and that cost twice as much? I imagine it was around the time we also got too good to let our kids work part time—in fast food restaurants never mind on farms—and when we got into debt up to our eyeballs, living beyond our means. Someone out there was clever (evil?) enough, as s/he watched McMansions being built, to prey on the bourgeois. S/he thought, Call it a martini, give it a fancy name, charge through the nose, and watch the craze. Ching ching! Maybe that person worked on commission for a liquor distributor, or was in the restaurant business and was neither earning good tips nor able to stomach pouring even one more White Zinfandel. Plus, I’m sure it’s far more entertaining to watch a drunk Stepford wife with blue lips than one who has been sipping “white zin.” (Although pouring white zinfandel must be good for a few laughs in some restaurants too. But I digress.) (Used to it yet?)

Whoever you are, wherever you are, take this: