NaDruWriNi Post 1 of 2: the Drinking Part
Nov. 7th, 2026 09:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tetsabI've learned my lesson. I know I have one post in me beyond this one so I'm calling it now and won't force extras. :)
This year I actually am drinking alcohol for the first time in an age. Months and months ago I assumed I'd be drinking the quit-gift scotch I still have but then I got sick about a month ago with something respiratory (best guess is RSV based on wastewater levels and a negative Covid test) and have coughed regularly ever since. This is absolutely normal for me 'cause I have mild asthma and usually my only options are to ride it out for a couple of months or head to a doctor to ask for a steroid inhaler. I'm going to give this 'til Monday before I consider executing on option two. If at all possible I prefer not to get the inhaler for two reasons: 1) it has potential fun side effects like yeast infection of the mouth; 2) my doctor has to be fought into doing something pretty much all the time and I'm not yet sufficiently hyped for a fight.
Long story short I'm not feeling scotch but I'm also not feeling tea ('cause I've been drinking boatloads of tea, generally herbal, since this happened and more tea now would just feel like The New Normal instead the NiceTeaWriNi I've done the last couple of times). So I went to the LCBO to buy booze for the first time in a good 5 years or so. I've not bought booze in that long 'cause during the 2021 part of the Covid lockdown's the CBC did a great job of repeatedly underscoring that alcohol is a group one carcinogen, which was complete news to me, and really sucked a whole lot of the fun out of it. Since then I tend to lift a glass with the thought of 'Mmm, carcinogen' instead of 'Mmm, tasty fun'. I keep exceptions like major social occasions and the sporadic WriNi but otherwise I'm mostly heading to parties with a carton of mango juice (my fav!) in tow.
Fair question would be why not NiceJuiceWriNi and the short on that is that is that it's something about the season... dark Novembers don't feel right for mango juice, so that's why I'm instead drinking Stone's Green Ginger, which is a fortified wine I have a huge amount of affectionate nostalgia for. Y'see being a Scot I got served my carcinogens early in the form of ginger wine and shandies around the holiday times and so have strong lingering affection for both, particularly fall through winter. If NaDruWriNi happened midsummer I'd probably go with mango juice or wheat beers over tea and scotch/fortified wine but NaDruWriNi is now and so ginger wine it is.
To get back to the topic of how I imagined this night would go -- with scotch in nice tumblers I hardly get to use now -- I found after I got sick the picture in my head of that evening lost all appeal. Perhaps this also goes back to my childhood nicking the dregs of scotch (whisky for me at the time) out of a glass and being flabbergasted -- with coughing fit -- that something that smelled so lovely could taste so horrible. I came around on scotch in my later years (my sister got me a scotch in the mail tasting session for my 2021 lockdown birthday) but tonight? Nah.
It's kind of a nice full circle thing here now, though, 'cause the last alcohol I got at the LCBO alllll the way back in 2020 was indeed Stone's Green Ginger 'cause during the December 2020 lockdown I decided a cheering thing to do would be to have a glass of it every evening as a tiny celebratory gesture at a fairly lousy time. It was only after I spent the month drinking it that the CBC kicked into high gear with their carcinogen articles making me think Well Isn't That Just Great about something I'd been considering making a new tradition.
Well, no new tradition there but NaDruWriNi is a good one whether it's Dru or Tea or anything else.
[starts in on glass number two]
This year I actually am drinking alcohol for the first time in an age. Months and months ago I assumed I'd be drinking the quit-gift scotch I still have but then I got sick about a month ago with something respiratory (best guess is RSV based on wastewater levels and a negative Covid test) and have coughed regularly ever since. This is absolutely normal for me 'cause I have mild asthma and usually my only options are to ride it out for a couple of months or head to a doctor to ask for a steroid inhaler. I'm going to give this 'til Monday before I consider executing on option two. If at all possible I prefer not to get the inhaler for two reasons: 1) it has potential fun side effects like yeast infection of the mouth; 2) my doctor has to be fought into doing something pretty much all the time and I'm not yet sufficiently hyped for a fight.
Long story short I'm not feeling scotch but I'm also not feeling tea ('cause I've been drinking boatloads of tea, generally herbal, since this happened and more tea now would just feel like The New Normal instead the NiceTeaWriNi I've done the last couple of times). So I went to the LCBO to buy booze for the first time in a good 5 years or so. I've not bought booze in that long 'cause during the 2021 part of the Covid lockdown's the CBC did a great job of repeatedly underscoring that alcohol is a group one carcinogen, which was complete news to me, and really sucked a whole lot of the fun out of it. Since then I tend to lift a glass with the thought of 'Mmm, carcinogen' instead of 'Mmm, tasty fun'. I keep exceptions like major social occasions and the sporadic WriNi but otherwise I'm mostly heading to parties with a carton of mango juice (my fav!) in tow.
Fair question would be why not NiceJuiceWriNi and the short on that is that is that it's something about the season... dark Novembers don't feel right for mango juice, so that's why I'm instead drinking Stone's Green Ginger, which is a fortified wine I have a huge amount of affectionate nostalgia for. Y'see being a Scot I got served my carcinogens early in the form of ginger wine and shandies around the holiday times and so have strong lingering affection for both, particularly fall through winter. If NaDruWriNi happened midsummer I'd probably go with mango juice or wheat beers over tea and scotch/fortified wine but NaDruWriNi is now and so ginger wine it is.
To get back to the topic of how I imagined this night would go -- with scotch in nice tumblers I hardly get to use now -- I found after I got sick the picture in my head of that evening lost all appeal. Perhaps this also goes back to my childhood nicking the dregs of scotch (whisky for me at the time) out of a glass and being flabbergasted -- with coughing fit -- that something that smelled so lovely could taste so horrible. I came around on scotch in my later years (my sister got me a scotch in the mail tasting session for my 2021 lockdown birthday) but tonight? Nah.
It's kind of a nice full circle thing here now, though, 'cause the last alcohol I got at the LCBO alllll the way back in 2020 was indeed Stone's Green Ginger 'cause during the December 2020 lockdown I decided a cheering thing to do would be to have a glass of it every evening as a tiny celebratory gesture at a fairly lousy time. It was only after I spent the month drinking it that the CBC kicked into high gear with their carcinogen articles making me think Well Isn't That Just Great about something I'd been considering making a new tradition.
Well, no new tradition there but NaDruWriNi is a good one whether it's Dru or Tea or anything else.
[starts in on glass number two]
no subject
Date: 2026-11-08 07:26 am (UTC)I should get myself a bottle of that. I wonder if it's still $7 a bottle?
no subject
Date: 2026-11-08 03:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-11-10 06:49 am (UTC)The AUD/CDN exchange is about $1:1 at the moment.
(Fun fact, if you use Duck Duck Go typing in "XE currency" brings up a convertor in the browser. I use it all the time for work).
And they make a chocolate orange infused version?