Confession time: how old were you, and what was it?

[Jenise]

16. Tang (a powdered orange drink originally developed for the NASA space program) mixed with Gallo Pink Chablis that I got a guy who worked at a gas station to buy for me.

I don't recall the first time, but I know my friends and I were frequenting a local bar when we were 16. I did get really drunk at a New Years Eve '64 party when I was 15.

15. Bootleg Dandelion wine.

I used to sip Welch’s Concorde Wine while watching TV at thirteen. But the first serious encounter happened in some kid’s parent’s house when I was fourteen or fifteen. There were three of us. Being pretty ignorant at that time, I had figured out without a lick of evidence that being drunk was all in the mind and could be controlled by will. To prove it, I chugged two or three water glasses full of vodka and waited to take control.

As I began to lose control, the other kid beat me up pretty badly, because I had beaten him up in a fair fight when we were both sober. Even while taking the beating, I empathized with the kid, realizing it would be his only shot and later acknowledged that we were one and one, and this made him proud. I got very sick from the huge amount of alcohol and learned a couple of valuable lessons on the long and winding road to responsible adulthood.

about 5 ( ) , at a function... well they all went off for some boring speech, so what's a nipper meant to do if they leave their drinks unattended

Even though I don’t really recall, but as an infant I experienced the dribble of wine from my father’s or grandfather’s finger. As a growing toddler and child it was mostly milk. By the time I was 13, occasionally, especially on a Sunday or Thursday (macaroni day at my house); it was apple juice with a drop of wine in it. By the time I was 16 or 17, it was a glass of wine with dinner.

Salute

Either too young or too old to remembr. Our family always had before dinner drinks, and wine for special and semi-special occasions. And they always shared at least a little at the latter.

[Jenise]

Either too young or too old to remembr. Our family always had before dinner drinks, and wine for special and semi-special occasions. And they always shared at least a little at the latter.

Yahbut, that was the 'parental supervision' type and doesn't require a confession. What about the stuff you snuck?

I was a late bloomer of sorts: I had tasted my Dad's bourbon as a child, and abhorred the tase of it. Wasn't until my third year of college (first year at UGA as a transfer) that I had more than a sip of anything. Still hated the taste, but I persevered and learned to swill the Bud with the best of them. Legally, to boot, as the drinking age was 18 at the time in Georgia.

[Robin Garr]

My parents would offer us a tiny sip from their on occasion, and happily, didn't teach that it was sinful or wrong to do so, so I didn't feel much impulse to go for it extra-legally.

Then, the summer I had just turned 18, I got a job working at a Scout camp in New York's Catskills, where the legal limit at the time was 18. I happily started ordering beer with my pizza, and after just a couple of experiments to determine the proper dosage, never really got into bingeing.

Sorry I don't have a better story. The time a few years later when I first tried tequila with the lime and salt thing, though, <i>that</i> put me off tequila for a really long time. But I was legal.

Why would anyone ruin Tang with booze?

One of the great hiking beverages -- and you can imagine being on the moon at the same time. Great stuff.

PS: I always liked this factoid: USS Tang (SS-306), was a United States Navy Balao class submarine that served briefly in World War II, but sunk itself with one of its own torpedoes.

B.

5 or 6. Served a mini-bottle of grape juice at a Seder, I snuck into the kitchen and swapped it for a similar looking mini-bottle of Concord wine. No one was the least suspicious until they noticed that I was... Schicker.

During high school, so 16 or 17. I always drank gin and vodka when I was in high school and college. I still remember going to a party with a lot of friends from work, getting smashed, having my boss turn to another coworker and say "Fred (Fred was a 40-something Iranian expat), why don't you drive Brian Home....and having Fred look at us and topple face first on the ground.

Never even liked wine until I moved to California 16 years ago. (Rochiolli Pinot Noir was my first "premium" wine). I didn't even like beer until a friend gave me a bottle of Sierra Nevada Christmas Ale. To this day, I really don't see the point of drinking Miller or Coors or Budweiser etc. I just don't like commercial lager very much.

I've been drinking wine since before I can remember. We kids always got a few drops mixed with a lot of water at the dinner table. And the typical sleep aid during cold season was warm milk with a shot of either peach or blackberry brandy in it. I don't think my liver knows what it means to be pure.

The first time I really got snockered, though, was when I was 16-ish. My parents owned part interest in a liquor store in a Valley Fair somewhere in northern New Jersey. We always had several dozen bottles of hard liquor down in the laundry room. Well, one Friday morning on the way into school in Jersey City I grabbed a two gallon bottle of Turnpike Scotch, hid it in a brown paper bag, and stashed it behind a billboard on Journal Square. That evening I retrieved it and headed over to the Excel Bar and Grill where I ran into a number of my schoolmates. I revealed the contents of my paper bag and we all hopped a bus to Bayonne. One of the kids grabbed a bottle of warm raspberry soda which we mixed with the scotch while we played basketball over the Hudson. To say the least, we were all pretty much drunk out of our minds. The warm weather didn't help.

Well, we rode back to the Excel, had a cup of coffee, but I was incapacitated and unable to find my way back across the street and into the tubes. (I had to take a train to Newark and a bus back to Nutley.) Some very attractive twin girls guided me to the station. At least I think there were two of them and I know I fell in love with both. I got to Newark without getting mugged, but the bus, the 112, had stopped running so I had to call my father. He fetched me, said nothing, and ran interference so I could get to bed without my mother's knowledge of my condition.

I didn't toss my cookies. I didn't have a hangover the next day. But I have never had another drop of scotch or whisky again. And I'm still looking for those twins.

Yahbut, that was the 'parental supervision' type and doesn't require a confession. What about the stuff you snuck?

As Howie mentioned we native New Yorkers could drink legally at age 18 up to a few years back. Therefore you could go to "certain bars" so long as you were shaving regularly.

One night at the age of sixteen I managed to down five Vodka Collins' at a bowling ally bar. Got so sick that I can't handle Vodka to this very day except in that Pink Pasta Sauce.

Oh, I see.
We're talking about WINE!

Alex

Alex wrote:
Oh, I see.
We're talking about WINE!



Knew that was coming!!!

Salute

LOL ... probably 15 - 16 and we were drinking Strawberry Hill. The first wine I had that actually got me into wine was the 2000 Falkner Amante.

My parents seldom drank, and even less often wine, but to their credit they did offer us small tastes of what they did. But for bottles that we actually acquired, I was probably 14 when we had friend's sister buy us Boones Farm and Annie Greensprings.

The time a few years later when I first tried tequila with the lime and salt thing, though, <i>that</i> put me off tequila for a really long time. But I was legal.

Ah yes - Tequila.....

I had a run-in with Tquila in my early 20s. Why anyone ever has drinking 'contests' is beyond me now = might as well have a hitting yourself in the head with a plank contest. In any case, I 'won' after consuming an entire bottle of Tequila (so did my friend, but not for long, if you get my meaning), and the big payoff was a 30 year disinclination to ever taste the stuff again.

Guess it could have been worse - I could have ODed on single malt or Cognac - sure would hate to be put of those!

grandpa's homemade zinfandel - I was probably 12 or so.

And people complain about today's high alcohol levels? That stuff was strong. Tasted worse coming up than it did going down.

grandpa's homemade zinfandel - I was probably 12 or so.

And people complain about today's high alcohol levels? That stuff was strong. Tasted worse coming up than it did going down.

I made my first wine when I was 14. My mother had recognized the Mr. Wizard in me and purchased me something called Mr. Vino (or similar). It had two 5 gallon bladders, two gas traps, brewer's yeast tablets and sulphur compresses. I reconstituted some Welch's frozen grape juice, added some sugar, and we were off to the races.

My mother used to drink a water glass full of this hooch at bedtime. I'm sure it was potent. Mogan David had nothing on me!

Ah yes - Tequila.....

I had a run-in with Tquila in my early 20s. Why anyone ever has drinking 'contests' is beyond me now = might as well have a hitting yourself in the head with a plank contest. In any case, I 'won' after consuming an entire bottle of Tequila (so did my friend, but not for long, if you get my meaning), and the big payoff was a 30 year disinclination to ever taste the stuff again.

Guess it could have been worse - I could have ODed on single malt or Cognac - sure would hate to be put of those!

Speaking as a former bartender for a college dormitory function known as "Tequila Night" (1000 guests, $1000 worth of beer and tequila, 1 ground level bathroom -- bad combo) I have had a chance to observe this phenomenon in more detail than any sane person would wish for. My former roommate came up with a theory that there are specific tequila receptors in the stomach to explain the observations that tequila had an effect on the stomach disproportionate to the amount of alcohol involved and that without exception people who'd become sick from tequila couldn't abide even the smell of it thereafter.

To accommodate the aforementioned deficiency of toilets, my dorm had come up with an ingenious plan years before my arrival: in the center of the dorm courtyard they dug a pit, lined it with plastic and made it available for partygoers who had an urgent need that wouldn't wait for the availability of the lone bathroom. It worked well, but the practice came to an unfortunate end shortly before my arrival when an inebriated co-ed from the neighboring college made the mistake of falling into the pit. A public relations blunder of massive proportions, I was told.

I am fortunate to have never overindulged enough with tequila to become sick, as I still enjoy the occasional sip of reposado or añejo.

Mark Lipton

Yahbut, that was the 'parental supervision' type and doesn't require a confession. What about the stuff you snuck?

So wine drunk on my own in a country with no legal age limit doesn't count, either, I suppose, since there is no transgression? I snuck beer, tequila and Galliano in high school and got sick on Bacardi 151 at a pool party when I was 14, but never felt the need to sneak wine since I viewed it as a part of the meal (some things never change). Part of the reason is that, as one whose adolescence occurred in the '70s, there were enough other intoxicants available that the need for alcohol was less than it was in other eras. My first unsupervised consumption of wine in the US took place in college when I was 19.

A possibly amusing footnote: my first time ordering wine in a restaurant occurred when I was 9, in Munich, traveling with my mother while my father was attending a conference in Helsinki. The waiter felt that, despite my age, I was the logical person to receive the wine list rather than my 40-year old mother. Fortunately, I was savvy enough to get a Riesling Spätlese, though both producer and year are lost to history.

Mark Lipton