The New York Times ran a disturbing article on Buckfast Tonic Wine, an appalling-sounding brew of fermented grapes, sugar, and caffeine that’s being blamed for a national crisis of highly-wired inebriation in Scotland. The government is considering controlling the vile substance, but local fans are responding with protests to the theme of “Don’t Ban Buckie!”
 
If you’ve tasted “Loopy Juice” (as they say in Glasgow) let me know if you were seized by intent to vandalize. And click here for the thoughts about my alcoholic WASP heritage that this story inspired:
 
I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of alcohol in my cultural heritage, in part because I had to do a “cultural sharing” for a class I’m taking, and when I sat down to think of things that symbolized my WASP (with the Anglo-Saxon part being mainly Scottish) background, the first thing that came to mind was a martini glass, since everyone in both my father’s and mother’s extended families broke every day at 5:00 pm, and occasionally at lunch, for gin cocktails. My mother’s family called it Happy Hour, but I’ve heard other WASPs call it Arsenic Hour. The happy part of this tradition is the laughter, the group solidarity, and the end-of-the-good-protestant-workday it brought about. The poisonous part is the alcoholism it fostered in many of my father’s family, especially. (My great uncle Fred, for example, drank himself to death in his early thirties.)
 
I also brought a bottle of wine to my cultural sharing, because I think in many ways my love of wine has been (among other things of course) a way for me to “manage” my alcoholic inheritance. I come from a long line of big Presbyterian drinkers, and I will indulge in the occasional cocktail. But I prefer wine. That’s because with wine, drinking isn’t (for me at least) about getting drunk; it’s about having something delicious to imbibe with food. It’s about gathering friends around the table. It’s an intellectual exercise for me, because I like to learn, think, and write about wine.
 
The exception to this rule about wine may be Buckie. I can’t see any reason anyone would drink this foul potion except to get potted. Your thoughts, whether you’re WASP or not?