Getting to know me via five drinks

[alias_sqbr]

isabel_lunnen/ isabelpsaroslunnen tagged me in a "getting to know you via five drinks" meme. So, off the top of my head, five drinks I have illustrative things to say about.

1: Tea: I haven't drunk tea in decades, not since realising the down I get the day after having such a significant amount of caffeine outweighs the up I get after drinking it (I realised this at uni after years of getting horrible headaches 'for some reason' during situations where I had no access to tea. Like during exams /o\). But I grew up in a VERY heavy tea drinking family, my grandma was English and the matriarch of the family and so it's Tradition to always greet visitors with a cup of tea on their arrival, and probably another one or two as the visit progresses. Mum pointed out the impracticality of this in un-air-conditioned Australian houses but still kept it up. I thus always keep a couple of different types of tea on hand for when my family comes over, and have a lot of nostalgic family associations with tea. When I drank it, my favourites were chai, lapsang souchong, and Lady Grey, but am not sure how much of me "liking" tea was liking the caffeine, especially given that I don't like decaffeinated tea (which still has some caffeine in it anyway) and don't like most herbal teas.

2: Banana smoothies. I have a ridiculous number of food intolerances but can still enjoy these with dairy free milk. And they're *sort of* healthy! So I drink a fair few in summer.

3: Bizarre un-nameable concoctions: I have had to learn to be creative with food and drink since developing so many food intolerances, but I was making these well before that. I just like combining flavours and seeing what happens! The result generally isn't good but I enjoy the experiment regardless. Drinks are a convenient medium since you don't have to worry about the chemistry of it the way you do with, say, baking. Unless you mix acid and milk, which I have been known to do >.> I have a collection of flavoured syrups I combine with spices for hot drinks and cordials/juices for cold drinks, and love trying random drink mixes when I find one that doesn't hit any of my intolerances. I was making turmeric lattes before they were cool! I am not sure I wrote it down but I used to make something chai-like with tulsi, I should try and replicate it now the weather is cooling down.

4: Fresh fruit juice: Since there's a lot of fruits and vegetables where I can't eat them whole but can drink the juice, we bought a juicer. It's a hassle to clean but great when I'm craving fresh fruit and there's nothing I can eat in season. My favourite combination is apple, carrot, fresh ginger, fresh turmeric, and a little bit of beetroot.

5: When I was 12 I went on a trip to Adelaide (the capital city of South Australia) with a choir I was in, and one day we went to a shopping centre with a ROLLERCOASTER in it that I was both too scared and too short to ride. So while everyone else was on the rollercoaster I explored and found a little cafe and bought myself an apricot spider: apricot syrup, lemonade (as in, like Sprite), and vanilla icecream. It has always stuck in my memory, because it was delicious and I have never managed to have anything else quite like it since (even if I bought the ingredients now I can't drink carbonated drinks any more, and am pretty sure I wouldn't LOVE it the same now anyway) and also because I took out my dental plate to drink it and forgot it. When I got home the free dentist was all "YOU LEFT IT IN ADELAIDE?? Eh, your teeth are straight enough to avoid serious problems." and so now my teeth are still kinda wonky. Which I was fine with, I hated that plate, and I think the wonky teeth give me character.

Thank you to everyone who has tagged me in memes lately, I have been VERY tired due to Life Things which is slowing me down but they are giving me something fun and easy to do when I have the brain. And I am tagging NOONE because tagging makes me weirdly anxious but if you follow me and think this sounds fun I'd be curious to see your answers!

Comments

[got_quiet]

I had a very similar experience with tea. I love it but the headaches I get if I drink more than half a cup a week are just not worth it. Every once in a while I indulge and I tend to regret it.

The apricot spider does sound good. I don't think I've had anything with apricot syrup in it here. It feels like an underutilized flavor generally in the US.

[alias_sqbr]

It's not used a lot here either, which is why I had trouble finding it on offer even in the sorts of places that sell other flavours of spider.

[caramarie]

I think I will have to try an apricot spider now! :o

[alias_sqbr]

I hope you enjoy it!

[winterbird]

I'm always so surprised that homemade iced tea never took off here, like, I know you can't drink it, but it seems in general, iced tea in an Australian climate, especially home-made, would be perfect? But no, here so many of us are, drinking our hot cups of tea when it's like 45C outside. x.x

I love your Bizarre un-nameable concoctions, you're like a professional potion maker in your spare time :D

[alias_sqbr]

I definitely tried iced tea a few times back when I still drank tea and thought it tasted ok, but never got around to doing all the preparation. Hot tea you can make right away! I've tried iced herbal tea but none of the flavours really worked for me and cordial is right there. But yeah it is interesting that it's so uncommon here.

[winterbird]

Yeah it's definitely Effort to make at home compared to hot tea, but for the folks who have the energy, I'm surprised they don't have a jug when visitors come over or something. It feels like there's a lot of hot weather adaptations we just stubbornly said 'no' to collectively as a nation (hence a lot of roast dinners still at Christmas as well).

Cordial can be so good

[alias_sqbr]

Yeah, that's Australia for you.

[lilysea]

Huh, I don't think I have ever noticed your teeth being kinda wonky!

[alias_sqbr]

It's pretty subtle! There's a gap between the two front teeth, and one of the teeth next to them is at an angle.