30 days of unbridled clarity: home alcohol risk assessment...

 
First question: Can I stare down a fridgeful of booze for a month and not give way and drink it all in a mad blur on a Tuesday evening, just a week into my abstinence marathon? 

Second question:  Do I actually own a fridgeful of booze? 

I suspect it’s a bit of a poor show in the fridge at the moment – last time I looked it contained a quarter of a puckered yellow pepper in its death throes, some Utterly Butterly (its surface devastated by Marmite swirls and toast crumbs), and a hell of a lot of cheese... The Lodger was either suffering unendurable calcium cravings or Aldi were doing 7-for-1 on Cathedral City. I also feel sure that if I did have a fridgeful of booze I’d probably already have drunk it. Is that that the dictionary definition of a paradox...? 

So let’s have a look...
 
Five minutes later and I can confirm that I don’t have a fridge filled with booze. No carefully stacked pyramid of Peroni bottles glistening with fridge-dew; no artisan cider; no chilled bottle of flinty Sancerre. What I do own, and what I expect a lot of you own, is a random selection of Crap Booze™, all of which was lurking on top of the fridge. I am five foot three and the fridge is about six foot three. I expect the Crap Booze™ thought it was safe up there. It was not. I stood on a  chair and lo – it’s full horror was revealed to me...

It transpires that I am master of the following liquids:

1) One maddeningly impossible-to-open miniature bottle of Tofoc. 
Tofoc, for the uninitiated, is Welsh toffee vodka. Now that makes it sound bit lame and Tiamariaesque. It is not. Imagine Cillit Bang mixed with lighter fluid, with a toffee twist: now that’s Tofoc. The Wife recently left us to return to her Welsh Homelands, and we each received a goodbye present of a mini Tofoc and some flavoured Welsh salt. The celery seed salt will naturally be perfect in a Bloody Mary once this infernal month is over. But if anyone has any suggestions as to what I can do with the vanilla salt, do tell... 
Chance of being consumed within next month: Highly improbable. Chance of being consumed ever: also highly improbable. Tofoc is fierce stuff – but I like it. The cap has, however, cross-threaded itself into oblivion, rendering it entirely impenetrable. I keep having mad visions of being snowed in next March and trying to saw the neck off the bottle with a blunt bread knife, whilst eating a crust of bread and weeping softly to myself... 

2) One bottle of very familiar-looking pink champagne 
I swear this champagne has been doing the rounds for at least three years now. You get all the kudos of turning up at your friend's house with a bottle of fizz (“Hey – big spender!”) and you know it’ll be back with you the very next time you cook dinner for everyone. Like that episode of Bagpuss where the Mice on the Marvellous Mechanical Mouse Organ keep shoving the same old HobNob through their supposed ‘biscuit factory’ over and over again.
Chance of being consumed within next month: Zilch. It’s probably already signed up for a star turn at someone else’s flat next Friday. Also, does anyone ever really sit down of an evening and crack open the bubbles? I bet even the queen doesn’t: she’d probably rather have a can of Fosters. To me, champagne has the taste of fear. It’s what you always get at the start of vile networking events where you’re expected to speak impressively to strangers and the organisers know that, for the fastest results, something that slips into your bloodstream quickly is the only way forward. And even when you drink it somewhere nice, like at a wedding, it carries an aftertaste somewhere between a sock and a fart. 

3) A dreg of Gordon’s Gin in a dusty bottle welded to the top of the fridge
Jesus. How long has that been there?
Chance of being consumed within next month: Again – zilch. Quite what substance it is welded to the fridge with, I know not. But if ever I decided I wanted to remove it, I’d have to get Two-Woman round with her power drill...

4) A nearly full bottle of Bombay Sapphire Gin
Such a pretty colour. But in terms of the ten botanicals it supposedly contains, it’s all fur coat and no knickers. Yes, I’ve done the Vinopolis Bombay Sapphire Experience, where you get to sniff an angelica root and some juniper berries and a piece of bark. Perhaps it’s my lager-deadened palate, but gin’s gin. You could put Happy Shopper Value Gin in my G&T and I’d be none the bloody wiser.
Chance of being consumed within next month: Slimline. Come on chaps: we’re moving out of G&T season now, plus a lack of coordination on my part means that I either come home with lime and there’s no tonic water; or I come home with tonic water and there’s no lime. That or I've gone out and left the freezer door open and the ice cubes have melted. Making the perfect G&T is a complex act of science, and seldom is science on my side.

5) Half a Bottle of Pinot Bollocks (can’t read label... looks like I accidentally put it in the washing machine with my gym kit and a packet of tissues).
From memory, this stuff doesn’t keep well. It’s a left over from The Wife’s work away-day two months ago. Its sister bottle was left open in the fridge for a week and when I unscrewed the cap on a curry evening, everyone went running round the kitchen gagging. Also, handling  the bottle rather curiously makes my hands smell of sausage rolls.
Chance of being consumed within next month: Erm… may as well cut my losses and tip this down the sink now. Whilst wearing Marigolds. Unless, of course, I fancy spending the next week smelling like a cheap buffet.

6) A dreg of tequila. 
Oh and the horror comes flooding back. A night spent on the balcony during a visit from Mrs Cohen (an entirely disreputable and incorrigible man), both doing Jackie Stallone impressions. I fell off my chair and was left with an imprint of  the decking across both buttocks for three weeks afterwards. I believe we originally started on the Bloody Marys, ran out of celery salt and switched to curry powder, then ran out of vodka and switched to tequila. But at what point did we decide to stop and hold back just a couple of tablespoons of tequila? Possibly the point at which we tried to re-enter the flat and realised we were being held back by a mysterious, invisible forcefield. On closer inspection, said ‘forcefield’ turned out to be the glass patio doors. This is what tequila does to your brain. The following day I was too ill to attend my own house-warming party. Mrs Cohen had to clean my bathroom, and I spent the day receiving visitors from my bed. This was one of those seminal moments where you think “I’m never going to get that drunk ever again” – and it actually turns out to be true.
Chance of being consumed within next month: A-ha. A-hahahahah. Hah. No fear. Perhaps I should FedEx to Mrs Cohen with a note that just reads “Itsh Jackie!” Failing that I might just use it to unblock the plug-hole in the shower... 

7) Fonthill Glebe Cassis Liqueur from a market stall in Salisbury.
In a nutshell: alcoholic jam. Another leftover from The Wife. She has a fondness for rustic home-brews such as this. It goes with her other quaint obsessions (fridge magnets, Wedgewood and chutney).
Chance of being consumed within next month: Again: not likely. I tried a shot of this before I went to a birthday party a few weeks back. It dyed my front teeth blue, gave me a dizzying sugar rush and constricted my throat. I think its rightful place is in a trifle or summer fruit pudding once the month is up.

And there we are. That’s the last time I need intrude upon the unique ecosystem that is the top of the fridge for the next three years at least. And at least at home I should be safe from the siren call of Crap Booze™. The pubs of London will prove a greater test of my resistance.

Two questions before I go:

1. What Crap Booze™ is on top of your fridge?

2. What would you call a Bloody Mary with the vodka swapped for tequila and the celery salt swapped for curry powder? 

Do tell.

The Unit Dodger