I've discovered that I'm a permanent tourist in my drinking life. Bring on the cosmos! Bring on the lemon drops! Bring on the lava flows! I'll take a margarita or pina colada any day. Gin and scotch....not so much.

After work yesterday, my coworkers invited me and a few others to a last minute martini party in one of their offices. I like vodka martinis okay, but I wasn't sure I'd ever tasted the gin version. One sip and ACK. That's exactly the sound I made. All I could taste was alcohol in the yuckiest sense. Not wanting to look like a wimpy girl in front of the boys, I gingerly sipped on my drink, trying to fool everyone and keep my lips from continuously pursing. Yes, I'm having a great time! Yum, this is delicious! I'd follow up each tiny gulp with a handful of chips or party mix or an olive...anything to make the taste go away.

Next up, a little bit of scotch. At least that has an actual flavor, but too bad it has to be of smoky old shoe leather. "How do you know what shoe leather tastes like?" one of my friends inquired curiously. I explained that I was basing my description on the scent of shoe leather rather than any history of snacking on it. I worked in shoes (part-time) back in my youth, so I should know. One of my other friends followed that with her observation that the scotch tasted like the smell of elephant poo, which she happens to like, so the conversation went along a whole new thread after that.

This is a bummer, because I always thought it was so cool in the movies when they'd mix scotch and water for a drink, ice cubes clinking in the glass. Now I'll have to refrain from yelling "Don't drink that nasty old shoe!" Not very cool at all.