Quinine and Pine

Many plants on this planet have curative abilities for a slew of maladies. In Jeremy Narby's book The Cosmic Serpent, the writer relays his studies in the Amazon basin, learning the local natives' belief that their dreams tell them what plants to use to mix and make healing "potions". These potions aren't magic, of course, but they're quite excellent at curing whatever they're designed to cure, sometimes many years ahead of pharmaceutical companies, a few of which have people working in the area.

One idea Narby discusses--and concedes it could get him drummed out of the anthropological academia--is an interpretation of the native's explanation that our DNA tells our Amazon cousins what plants to use, and that communication takes place when the medicine men are under the influence of ayahuasca, a psychedelic brew made from local vines. The main ingredient in ayahuasca is DMT, an alkaloyd that's a building block in psilocybin, the magic component in "magic mushrooms".

In any case, the bark from cinchona trees from Peru, when mixed with sweetened water (to offset the bitter taste), was (and still occasionally is) used as an effective muscle relaxant. Another interesting thing this bark water does is stave off malaria. The main ingredient, chemically, as it were, is quinine.

When the Brits colonized India, malaria being the problem that it still is, they had to drink plenty of quinine. They carbonated it and called it "tonic water", as it was literally a health tonic. Would anyone like to guess what colonizing military men would do with a fizzy and horribly bitter drink?

Add gin, of course.

If you take neutral spirits from agricultural production and distill them a second time, and this time mix in the berries of the juniper pine tree, you get what we call "gin", a harsh concoction of rubbing alcohol and pine. Oh how we love it. Maybe I just mean "me" instead of "we".

The name almost certainly comes from genievre, French for juniper, so that pine taste is an essential characteristic.

In my time as being an alcohol-drinking person, I've gone through different phases of where my affections lie when it comes to cocktails, beers and wines.

My love of beer is great, and while I enjoy many different kinds, I tend toward ales over lagers, darks over lights, and I'll order any small brand I've never heard of before. In Texas I drank a fair share of Lone Star (The National beer of Texas), but only because it was cheap. In New York it was Ballantine Ale, which wasn't all that bad. In both of those cases cost and resources were issues, but my true affections lie with the high-end or small production product.

My appreciation of wine is also great, but I say appreciation and not "love" deliberately. After a rough patch when I was 19, I stayed away for more than ten years. Now I'm learning to appreciate more, and generally just learning more, which I like.

This post is more about my cocktail habits. When I was young and stupid I didn't really drink vodka mixed drinks. I still don't today. They're too smooth for me, to easy to mask, maybe. Maybe that says something about me.

I did drink a bit of gin and Dr Pepper, an old-fashioned GDP, before I backed off spirits in general for a half-dozen years or so. You could probably say that of anything, the GDP was my "drink" during those times.

The day I turned 21, I went into a bar and ordered for my first drink the same thing my dad told me he ordered on his first trip to the bar: a whiskey sour. (I wasn't carded.) It was hot sweet-tarts, and I had my new "drink". I drank whiskey sours for a while, until being accepted into a bar culture and scene that was the coolest bar scene I've been a part of. At McCarthy's they'd pour drinks that were strong, and I mean strong, and so I switched to Jack & Coke. The smallest amount of Coca Cola can affect the flavor of Jack Daniels in such a way as to make even the largest amount of spirit palatable.

Jack & Coke did me well most everywhere. People have heard of it, they don't need to ask what's in it, and it's respectable. Most everyone in our group ordered J&C then, and still order it today. In our group, the occasional shot will be Jameson, while Corrie tends toward Patron. I won't turn down Jaeger.

But, as happens in life, circles come around. At a NY Jets draft party in upstate New York everyone was drinking gin & tonics, and I joined in, having not even tasted gin since 1998. It was warm out and the drink, with it's bright quinine lime and pine flavor was quite refreshing.

I started regularly drinking the G&T as a cocktail a year later. I noticed that nobody would drink my gin. Now, as a stiff cocktail on my one day of drinking a week, the G&T does me well.

Quinine and pine...my history tied with the DMT drinking natives learning from their DNA...

I listened to mine; I learned from it; I am it. This just might be the most self-indulgent tripe-filled introduction to a long essay on DNA. I'm not sure that I'd agree with Narby's vocabulary or wording of his central thesis, that DNA educates beings to important things that would be helpful to those beings, but, in reality, the truth of the matter is a shadow of that thesis, or the thesis is a shadow of the truth.

Quinine and pine...a metaphor for the underpinnings of the human universe...health and self-destruction...learning from yourself and about your own connection to this rock...quinine and pine...