#54: Scotch

The Gods have finally answered. After years of waiting, praying, hoping, and a lot of shots in your dorm room without the RA finding out, you are finally 21! No more sneaking around and hiding your booze stash or sweating it out in line for a bar with your fake ID because you can legally drink. As it is a cause for celebration, dinner with the parents is in order. The waiter turns to you asking for your drink choice and a whole new world of options has opened up. You sift through your mind and order a Miller Lite. That was a mistake… Dad laughs out loud and tells the waiter that he is going to teach his son how to enjoy a real drink. Dad then orders you the manliest and therefore most Dad beverage: SCOTCH.

Your feeble college liver is not ready for such an intense taste because it has only been tested with cheap beer and Skol Vodka. The two fingers of scotch in front of you are as intimidating as Jean Claude Van Damme in Bloodsport, and the kick after each sip is just as bad as JCVD’s foot going through your head. It tastes like pure wood; it burns going down and makes you sweat. It is a real drink, for real men. Dads are such men.

Dads like to unwind after a tough day at work or an afternoon of puttering around the house by relaxing in his easy chair or on the patio overlooking his domain (the lawn) and enjoying that simple and yet so complex drink that is scotch. It comes in many bottles from many different distillers and even though the names are all in English, you cannot pronounce any of the names correctly. Damn Scottish accents. Every Dad has their favorite scotch. And it does not stop at a certain company. A real Dad will order his scotch down to the specific age and even batch type. That is a man who knows his drinks.

Some Dads get theirs on the rocks, some with a splash of water. But the Daddest of Dads orders his scotch neat, nothin in the glass but that caramel ooze of goodness. Even though you can barely put it to your lips without gagging, Dad sips on it like it was water. He will usually exclaim something like, “It puts hair on your chest!” But it won’t put it on your balding head Dad. During the holidays or a football game, “It is the best thing to warm you up on a cold day!” We don’t know about that, but it sure burns enough in the throat to make you feel like you are on fire.

So go on, keep drinking your light beer and cheap vodka. Enjoy your newfound freedom of drinking in pubs and bars legally. But as you age, you will seek more intense liquors to tantalize your worn out taste buds. Scotch has been here for hundreds of years, it will be there for you in your future Dad career.