I love sharing beer with you because my inability to pin your exact taste down frustrates me. One of my favourite aspects of being a bartender is getting to know the taste of my regulars so that I can make recommendations that they will enjoy, and steer them away from any potential pitfalls. I pride myself on my ability to do this. Your taste changes by the day however, with seemingly little to no reasoning. I will take mental notes on a beer that you like; the hops, the flavour profile, the level of bitterness, and a few weeks later I may recommend a similar beer which ticks all of the same boxes. You will, inevitably, hate it. It drives me crazy, this puzzle that I cannot solve. I love that you do not care about this at all. To you there is no pattern to unravel, just things you like and things you don’t. It provides me a vital reminder of just how trivial beer actually is, which can be an easy thing to forget when it constitutes such a large part of my professional life. There’s also the possibility that you do it just to annoy me, which I love even more. 

=

I love sharing wine with you because it humbles me. Your presence in my life has rekindled an interest in wine I had long lost. I can’t pretend to be able to do much more than taste a wine and say ‘ooh that’s nice it reminds me of x’ or ‘eww that sucks, it tastes like y’. Thus I bring wine to you much in the same way as a housecat proudly presents a dead mouse; oblivious and eager for approval. Getting it right is a reward unto itself, and when I get it wrong I adore you for telling me it’s good, even when the truth is so clearly plastered all over your face.

=

I love sharing whisky with you because it brings us closer. You are the ultimate creature of habit. You refuse to drink until well past a time at which I have usually stopped, and will absolutely not be enticed to do otherwise. You have never told me why, but I suspect it is because you are worried someone will call you with some urgent plea for help, requiring you to drive, something you would never do after even a single shot of whisky. Not that having just one shot of whisky is a position you would ever find yourself in. You may start late, but once the tap has been turned on, turning it off is hardly the work of a moment. Typically, if we are opening a nice bottle of whisky, I will have my first dram around 8PM and another around 9:30PM. You will then join in around 11PM and by midnight you will have caught up with, if not overtaken, me. Clearly the weights and measures act of 1985 holds less sway over you than it does me. “A glass is to be filled” you say to me, as I watch you slug a fifth of a bottle of whisky into a glass, the way one might pour out orange juice. It makes me smile to see you, usually so restrained, momentarily trading attributes with me. My self-indulgence in your gill, your control in my watered-down dram. Some of our most meaningful conversations have taken place at 1AM over a conspicuously depleted bottle of whisky. I treasure this time with you, unsure of how much more we will have.

=

I loved sharing take-out with you because it was when we were both at our worst. You would eat like a starving orphan, shovelling such great quantities of food into your mouth at once, that I was scared that you would choke. I would pick around mine, staring at it, like the dog who’d been left alone with the christmas turkey. We always ordered something to share, but I don’t think we ever did. You always finished yours, and the sharing portion too, before I could clear my plate. I chided you for this, but you knew that I was feeling bad enough for eating what I had, and that I was secretly grateful that you had saved me from the shame that eating more would’ve wrought. But you would never bring that up. You would just smile, remnants of food encrusting your mouth, and tell me “be quicker next time then”. I don’t think you know how much I needed that, someone seeing the worst parts of me, and staying. I love you for this.

=

Tonight I am sharing with you. I bought this bottle of wine a couple of weeks ago with a vague idea of having somebody around for a dinner that has never materialised. Chiefly because I have made absolutely no effort to invite anybody over. I have found recently that I can only justify buying ‘treats’ if they are not for you. I don’t know why this is. I know that you are as worthy of these gifts as anybody else, it is something I am working on. I don’t make enough time for you. I carve out time to spend with others, facilitating a space which allows me to love and be loved in turn. Loving you is harder, it is the work of a lifetime, something that ebbs and flows, and it is easy to forget that I need to make space for loving you, just as I do with others. I will try harder, starting with this wine, cascading into a solitary glass.