The Shot Glass

Okay.............................. Five years ago I had one lonely bottle of good sour mash aging in the cool depths of the lower cabinet in the front of the kitchen.  A quart of Rebel Yell I had purchased sometime back in the late 1980s.  It sat there, dust accumulating  on it's horizontal surfaces thick enough to hide the amber gold trapped within its glass walls.

Fast forward through and past the celebrations of the next millennium.  Zoom past the anger and pain of 9/11 and sometime around 2009 I found that bottle of Rebel Yell cooling its heels in the dark depths of the lower cabinet in the front of the kitchen ........ .................................. I had not allowed Demon Rum to pass my lips in at least 15 years, maybe 20........ Shit I dunno, it was a long time.

I pulled that bottle of Rebel Yell out of the lower cabinet in the front of the kitchen.  Tried to blow the dust off, but it laughed at me.  "  Bud, get an ice scraper fool, we be chillin long time."

So I got a rag, wet it down and wiped the dust off that quart of Rebel Yell, marveling at my good fortune, and savoring this gift from my well checkered past.



I hesitated before breaking the tax stamp seal on the cap. I took some moments to ponder what I had in front of me and why I had chosen to not crack that tax seal years ago. I had no convenient answer, no solid excuse why.............I had just flat out forgotten that quart of Rebel Yell existed.

I looked at the open pine shelves that graced the top of that cabinet in the front of the kitchen.  Those shelves held the glass memories of alcohol past.  Shot glasses, bar glasses, and gilded wine goblets from the many drunks of mine and my wife's youth.  Mementos of good times spent less than sober.  I was looking for "the shot glass"..... the one I had tipped too many times, too often when I was younger and numb-er.

At first I did not see it.............. Then there next to the Irish Pub glass, it sat sad and dirty, it's silver gilded lip black from lack of use.   Along with the decades of dust inside, there were two dried up dead bugs of indeterminate origin.  On their backs, legs up, nothing but empty husks of what they once were when alive and vital.  One was a sad version of red, the other black.

I dumped the bugs out, took a wet rag and wiped out that shot glass. I looked at "the shot glass" and then looked at the un-cracked bottle of Rebel Yell.  I concluded that a full bottle of Rebel Yell deserved some attention, especially one that had 20 years of aging under it's belt. ............ It would be shame to pass through this Life without at least tasting it. ......... It did not take much to convince myself to crack that tax seal.

I polished up "the shot glass", made that silver gilded lip shine and poured myself a shot ....................

That quart of Rebel Yell is long gone now.  In its place in the depths of that lower cabinet in the front of the kitchen sit some Evan Williams sour mash, a shot or two of Jameson and two fifths of McIvor blended Scotch.  Seems the liquor cabinet is full. ........... Time for some scotch on the rocks.

Keep it 'tween the ditches.....................................
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Brought to you and yours while drinking decent Scotch on the rocks and listening to decadent and sinful melodies. ..