"A Wine Alcoholic is Worse than a Whiskey Alcoholic"- Jack Kerouac

So here's some shit for ya. When I first read this Jack Kerouac quote in On the Road some 3 or 4 years ago, I had no clue what it meant. It seemed vaguely important, however, so I tucked it away as one of those many nuggets of potential relevance that I hoped would someday sprout illumination. Then, I went to Bermuda with my wife three weeks ago.

Henceforth, this quote means everything to me. You should read the following paragraphs. Unlike most content on The Inapp Thesaurus, this is not only appropriate, but actually worth reading. And just because I'm a relativist doesn't mean I'm incapable of objectivity. Quite the opposite; a subjective mind-set exercises the ability to highlight neutral and opposing perspectives, which gives you all the advantages of objectivity, but without the downer of narrow-mindedness.

And speaking of the worthlessness of objectivity, I'd like to point out that I still don't know exactly what Kerouac meant by this quote. But what's important is: now I know what this quote means to me. And that's the whole point of any artistic experience. Anybody that tries to tell you otherwise... well, they might be right. It would be rude of me to presume they're wrong, because the human experience is entirely too young an experiment for me to digitize the essence of veracity into the categorical trappings of yes and no.

I'm sure you've picked up on this by now, but tonight I've been drinking wine. Specifically Merlot. Ever since Paul Giamatti's uber-snob in sideways railed against this mainstream swill ("I'm not drinking any FUCKING MERLOT!!"), I knew it must have merit. Nothing quite tips you off about something that's basically a solid product quite like an elitist's outrage.

I have one word for you: Nitrates.

During the adolescence of my alcohol experience (which, remarkably, was not during my adolescence--rather, 19ish) I always found it to be BS when people said, "When I drink ___________, I get a different type of drunk than when I drink ________". Not that I thought they were lying... I figured there was some sort of atmospheric nuance that could explain their state of mine: i.e. I always drink beer at Ben Harper concerts, but I always drink tequila at family members' funerals. I always drink champaigne at New Years eve, but I always drink vermouth before a mammogram. Turns out, beer gives me fun drunk. Vermouth gives me a nervous drunk. Champagne gives me an excited drunk. Tequila gives me a horny drunk (etc, etc...).

But an artist friend named Dan Hodges pointed out to me--shortly after I spent a year booze free for the purposes of hilariously messing with my buddies' heads--that red wine gives a more cerebral, high-esque drunk. "BS", I thought--incorrectly. I had heard about the tremendous headache people get from red wine the next morning, but I was pretty sure there was no differentiating module of intoxication to be offered by grape-skin fermentation as opposed to any other fermentable sugars (again, incorrect).

I had a pretty limited experience with red wine. The only times I had it was every Sunday night for about a month during college when I went over to this guy Danno's townhouse to order chinese and watch Adult Swim. The reason I had red wine during this time period is because it was around the time that my little sister started getting into trouble in high-school and my parents wanted to get rid of the kind of liquor supply that only gets built up by a festive guy like my dad--an Irish non-drinker who likes to have 3 house-parties a year for his raging hooligans. After I finished all the other random half-full bottles they gave me for my 21st b-day (a gift which got me drinking scotch, gin, brandy, and all sorts of not-college spirits, making me look like lushaholic european), the very last things of interest to me in this stash were these half-full old-ass bottles of red-wine which were almost pure vinegar by that point. I didn't recall any unusual drunk, but I was also on carbohydrate and absurdity overload.

Cut to three weeks ago, and I'm on an "all inclusive" trip to Bermuda with my wife and fellow bingeaholic, Dorothy Hamill. All inclusive means: You pay more in advanced, but while you're on the trip, food and drink are "all you can consume". It's a pretty sick and twisted affair. Americans seem to love it. And I seem to love Americans. So we did it. And guess what type of beverage I've been meaning to explore, but would never bother spending money on it because it tastes like a mixture of plastic and waxy boredom. That's right. Red wine.

I had read that it was good for the heart, for the same reason as garlic--another vasodiolator (aka widener of arteries). Well, when I drank red wine during my vacation (I had it with dinner because beer was too filling to drink with a veritable all-you-can-eat steakhouse).

And guess what!

Not only was I feeling more cogent, articulate, and significantly less stupid after 4 wines than after 7 beers. But I was feeling a different type of intoxication than I was used to (much like the "high" that Mr. Hodges expressed). I had a 45 minute discussion with a nearby diner from England on the nature of 24 hour media and socialism in the modern era. I proceeded to destroy my wife in Settlers of Catan for the first time since we got there. I traded in my usual useless yelling for pertinent discussion and strategy. What gives?

So, it turns out that when your drink is capable of both alcohol intoxication AND vasodialation, this yields not only more alcohol to the deeper recesses of the brain... But more oxygen as well. Same reason you have that splitting headache in the morning after red wine. Because all the impurities that come from alcohol in the blood stream are now residing deeper in your neural cavities.

Additionally, after coming back to the states--where, to drink wine, I'd have to pay money to do so--I stopped drinking it cold turkey. My usual post-binge heart palpitations and numb arms/legs were significantly worse than usual. This could have been a coincidence, but it also could have been my arteries restricting back to normal due to an absence of grape skin tannins.

So why does red-wine make for a worse alcoholic than whiskey? Well, for starters, alcoholics are usually hypertensive (I sure am!), and vasodiolation can add an element of physical dependancy which can perhaps add more withdrawal symptoms than barley-based beverages like whiskey or beer. Secondly, it offers (quite frankly) a more interesting intoxication, expanding that special feeling from the face up to the head.

Taste notwithstanding, I can see falling in love with this particular escape from the unemployment line much harder than a 40oz bottle of "lets throw my cheese-steak at a U-haul."