Jeffrey Bernard
VODKA. Not a very imaginative choice I know, but it is the only drink that doesn't make me very ill. For years I drank whisky until it caused me to get pancreatitis and subsequently diabetes. Now that I am not supposed to drink at all I find vodka to be the next best thing to abstinence. The way I drink it, diluted with soda and ice, makes it a pretty tasteless drink but I have to dilute it to protect the guts. The amount of soda or water I add would ruin a decent whisky.
Once you combine a mix with a vodka it matters not a damn what brand you are drinking. But at its best, out of a freezer so that it has an oily consistency, neat and with caviar or gravadlax I recommend Stolichnaya, Finlandia or Moskovskaya. At home where I have an electric juice extractor I like vodka with fresh orange juice. This must be the only country in the world where you can't get fresh orange juice. The carton stuff is rubbish.
But, having said that vodka is my favourite drink, I suppose whisky is the best all-rounder in the world. It does make people go mad though. When I was banged up in the bin in 1972 for three months 90 per cent of the inmates were whisky drinkers. Most of them were covered with scars as the result of accidents or fights.
I find beer boning and a soporific and I also don't have the cubic capacity for it any more. I love good claret and hate wine without food. People who drink quantities of dry white wine without eating usually smell like drains. But neither good wine nor the best beer give me a cerebral kick, confidence or feelings of safety and secur- ity. I can even address the female species after three large vodkas and could have ridden into the Russian guns at Balaclava after just the one.
I don't much like booze with ethnic food but vodka goes fairly well with anything. I went through a phase of drinking vodka with lime but the hospital warned me off the bottled stuff because of the sugar and fresh limes in big doses are very acid. I only wish I could get out of tea what I get out of vodka. I love it. Meanwhile, it's back to an excellent bottle of Polish Wyborowa.
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