What is your favorite drink?
Milk. Plain. Boiled. Fresh Milk. Anytime day or night. It has always been milk. I don’t like the tetrapak flavours. Just plain old, Nandini milk, will keep me smiling. I’ve reduced the quantities with age, but I used to drink a lot of it growing up. And I loved the doodh doodh doodh doodh, doodh hai wonderful advertisement that Amul milk had created in the 1990s. Made me feel right at home, that jingle was created for me exclusively.
My aunt on my mums side used to boil 4 litres of milk at a time. She used to feed her dogs milk and boiled rice. Pouring the milk from the huge vessel was an art. Pouring it, without spilling a drop and not drooling into it while she would chant from outside the kitchen door saying, ‘don’t drool into it, don’t drool into it. If you do, you drink all of it by yourself.’ And guess what, I did! Once. Drool. Into. The. Damn. Vessel. And was forced to drink the entire lot of it. All 4 litres of it. I never volunteered to pour milk ever again in her house. In that house, the kitchen and puja room were the same, so when she had her periods she would not come into the kitchen and everyone had to chip in and help out. The drama never ended in that house. This incident happened when I was staying over and helping her feed her dogs. After the incident I told her sibling who was also living with her, to keep the stuff out, so she could do the work herself. Anyway, even drinking 4 litres over a day, did not cure me of my liking for milk.
My aunt on my dad’s side, used to boil milk with sugar. The smell of boiling milk with sugar added to it is mouth-wateringly delicious. They used to serve me milk in the tiniest glasses. Every visit I used to ask for more, just the milk would suffice. It used to be funny how they would get only small glasses of it. their daughter never took to liking the flavour of milk, and I never could understand why.
My mum on the other hand, used to boil milk by the litre, and she would give me a big glass full of it, poured to create foam. Without any sugar added. Just the flavour of freshly boiled milk, ensured I drank it at one go. And this happened every single day.
I still boil milk, by the litre and hardly ever drink it. There are those off days, when dinner is a bit late and I get tempted and have a small cup, post dinner, and I relish every sip. Still is the best solution for falling asleep. Warm milk. My kids drink milk. Will it be their favourite? I don’t know. But it is mine. Always has been. Always will be.
I don’t think today’s prompt was about milk though. For the alcoholic varieties of drink, I’m partial to Bailey’s – but this is a recent development. I don’t mind a good whiskey, prefer it with warm water, ice is any drink is not really a preference. I don’t mind a beer, but it has to be a bit earlier in the evening, I dislike waking in the middle of the night to pee. I prefer having a drink post a meal, so I don’t have to worry about getting drunk. I’ve never enjoyed being drunk, there have been a handful of instances where I drank that much. And the gap between those instances is huge(12-18 months easily). After the kids were born, specially the first one, I had my drink when the baby was about 7 weeks old, and that time, the good old beer had the same effect on me as three rounds of large whisky’s . I drink, so I’m not the designated driver or cleaner after an evening out. I don’t drink so much so as to cause puking or have hangovers. And this is more of a personal choice than anything else. If I don’t have access to Bailey’s, then I may try a whiskey sour (I liked it without the egg) or the mojito or the martini (like Bond, but not shaken with so much ice!). Or even one of those blue curaçao drinks, that may look like having a glass of the ocean(at megaladon depths) served to you. If it’s sweet or at room temperature, I’m happy. If it’s served with ice, then I will let it sit and thaw, and then have it at the temperature that I like.
Just a little more 