Twice the Legal Limit

I am forty-two years old; therefore, my status as being old enough to drink is now, well, old enough to drink.

Funny thing is - I never have.

In high school when everyone else was experimenting, I wasn't interested.

By college, I'd seen enough friends puking in the shrubs outside some too-warm, too-noisy party to be at all tempted.

But now.
Now I'm interested.

I have decided that my summer project, as it were, will be to learn how to drink.
It's time.

I figure the first step is to figure out what kind of drinker I'll be.

I have enough life experience to know what I don't want: to have my husband come home some afternoon and find me sitting in a room all alone with the curtains drawn, listening to Morrissey and clutching half a bottle of something. No. That'd be bad.

I picture myself as more of a social drinker  - a "cool beverage at the cook-out, surrounded by my friends" kind of a gal. That seems acceptable, yes?

Then, of course, I have to pick my poison.

Hmm, what'll I have?

Again, I start with the no-no's:
- nothing with a ridiculous name (fuzzy navel, sex on the beach, etc.)
- nothing so lamely sweet that seventeen year old girls and soccer moms think it's "yummy" (strawberry daiquiri, wine coolers, etc.)
- nothing that comes from a box
- nothing that comes from a slushie machine
- nothing you'd drink from a plastic cup at a frat party
- nothing they drink on Mad Men

Well, that narrows my list considerably.

I seem to be drifting toward beer, but my wise grandmother had me take a sip of hers when I was about four, and my disbelief that anyone would voluntarily drink that stuff lingers. Of course, she drank Walter's. And I was four.

I'm thinking that something from a microbrewery -  something with an exceedingly specific flavor profile (perhaps involving honey or wildflowers) - might just be my bag. It needs to have just enough snob appeal to make sense in the hand of a lady of my age and discerning taste, but it can't be so yuppy pretentious as to be, yanno, unflattering.

Suggestions from the audience?