Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St. Clement's

So the way the blogger reconnection happened is that one night I was out with Nick and some of his colleagues and I asked for a dry martini with lots of olives. And I got this.

It was perfect. So I put it on Facebook. Look at this most perfect martini which is basically a big vat of olives surrounded by gin.

And then Kris and Megan were both all, oh, you love martinis! We must drink martinis!

They, however, like their martinis with vodka. Which I vaguely knew was a thing but had never really thought about.

I mean, I'm fine with vodka. But I myself wouldn't choose it.  For me, martinis are gin. And gin is good.

Here I was going to say that I grew up on gin, but one, that sounds terrible, and two, it's not strictly  accurate.

Please know that I didn't grow up swilling any alcohol. But it was the 70s and there were lots of cocktail parties and as such, lots of gin.

I don't know if this was the same in America. In fact, I assume it's because we lived in countries that had been colonized or occupied by the British: India, Bangladesh, Egypt. Those colonizers needed those gin and tonics to survive malaria in the godforsaken outposts.

Gin became my drink of choice in high school. But being calorie conscious, I'd drink gin and soda water rather than tonic. Which is silly, you know, because we took chloroquine tablets. I had no idea I could've just been drinking my quinine.

Anyway, this is not about quinine but about gin. Although I do enjoy a nice tonic water.

I like my (gin) martinis very dry. Very very very. I mean, vermouth is nice as long as there is just the tiniest, vaguest wee bit. A suggestion, really.

Nick says I'm just pretending with the martinis because I like a pretty glass. When really, I should just admit that what I really want is a bucket of gin.

Which is not entirely true. I'd be delighted with a bucket of olives as well. 

So now you know: When it comes to alcohol, I'm an 18th-century British slum dweller.