canyonwalker | My Drinking Problem 2023 (Reply)

In the various retrospectives I wrote a month ago at the start of the year one I overlooked was my stash of booze.

Recall that years ago I diagnosed myself with a drinking problem— though not the one you may think. The problem is I don't drink enough! ...Well actually I do drink enough. The problem is really that while I enjoy drinking booze in moderate amounts I enjoy buying it in heavier amounts. If I don't carefully control my purchases my stashes of wine, beer, and liquor are prone to grow overfull, to the point that bottles and cans end up lined up on counters, and some older beverages go stale or spoil before I get around to enjoying them.

"Really what you have is a shopping problem, not a drinking problem," one of my friends assured me several years ago. Indeed, it's been by buying less more than drinking more that I've brought the two into balance. Though as anyone with a problem can tell you, maintaining balance takes constant effort.

So, how am I doing with my ~~drinking~~ shopping problem?

Wine: 70 Bottles ± 5

Wine is the biggest part of my alcohol collection. Several years back I set a target on its size. 75 bottles ± 5, I decided. While that may seem to the uninitiated like a lot of bottles, it was a calculation to give me enough to keep many varieties on hand and age them appropriately. It was a big step down from the 125 bottles I used to have. And even that isn't big for wine aficionados. Friends of mine who drink wine faster than I do have collections of 300+ bottles.

Across 2022 I actually held below my target of 75 as a midpoint. After maintain 75 ± 5 for a few years I actually did 70 ± 5 last year. I feel like I've still got a reasonable library with that slightly lower count so I'll look to continue at that level in 2023. As a data point I'm at 70 bottles right now (it was 71 until I opened a 2017 zinfandel with dinner 😋) and I'm not feeling the itch to buy more until I polish off a few more.

Beer: Reasonably in Check

When I did a check-in like this two years ago my beer stash was sprawling out across the kitchen counter. It wasn't a good look for someone who wants to have his ~~drinking~~ shopping problem under control. This past year I kept a reasonable lid on the total number of beers in my stash, even as I bought a lot of different beers for my Beer Tasting 2022 project. I kept the size of the collection in check by buying only a few varieties at a time. And I kept them from sprawling across the kitchen counter by storing them in the finished crawl space downstairs. 😅

Hard Liquor: A Little Overgrown

Hard liquor is the one part of my booze collection that has gotten away from me over the past year. My standard for hard liquor is that it's got to fit in the two shelves of cabinet space reserved for it, with an allowance for really tall bottles that I have to put on the counter below because they don't fit above. I mostly stuck to that plan during 2022, but then right at the end of the year I bought a few more bottles than I really should have. Now I have several on the counter.

How will I trim the hard liquor down to size? Well, first, I'll drink it! And I won't let myself go shopping for more until I drink a bunch first. 🥃🍸🍹

Second, I should just throw some out. ...Wait, what?! 🤯

I have at least 3 bottles of liquor I simply don't enjoy. Some of them were gifts that aren't my thing, some are things I decided to try and discovered I don't like. Most of them are cheap liquor so it doesn't hurt to throw them out— or at least it shouldn't. The problem there is I wrestle with the habit of frugality ingrained in me when I was young. I struggle with throwing stuff out, thinking, "Well, maaaybe I could enjoy it, sometime." At some point, though, I'm just going to say "Fuck it!" and pour it down the drain. ...And yes, I have done that before! See "Why is All the Rum Gone?"