It was my friend Jen’s birthday on Sunday. She was drinking gin. Via the medium of Facebook she suggested that I write 7 Reasons Why Gin is Never Wrong. I didn’t like that idea at all, but I found inspiration in it. So here are 7 Reasons That Gin is Never Wrong. Thanks Jen.
1. Gin Is Good For You. Gin contains all five of your five-a-day. Have a (large) gin and tonic, and there’s a portion of lime. Follow it with a martini, and there’s an olive. Have a few more martinis, and there’s some more olives (plus a few twists of lemon if you’re on a health drive). Then make a Pimm’s (the number 1 cup is gin-based) and lemonade and you’ve got a drink with the remainder of the fruit bowl plus a salad in it. That’s all of your five-a-day. You don’t even need to wash the salad because…
2. Gin Is Better For You Than Water. It’s true! Gin is medicinal. In eighteenth century Britain, the water contained all sort of nasties; cholera, typhus (and other bad things that I vaguely remember studying at college and don’t have time to research now. You’ll just have to take my word for it that water is bad.) and it was actually safer to drink the gin. So that’s what people did until the government rather meanly halted unlicensed production. If you consume your salad in your gin, it’ll be healthier than if you washed it. Probably.
3. Gin Is Logical. When people drink gin, it brings out their better natures and they usually do the most logical thing. Let’s look at what people do when they drink gin at home. They sometimes go online and shop (I’m sure we’ve all done it). And when they shop under gin’s good influence, they always buy the right thing. A pirate hat; a sports-car; a giant Anglepoise lamp are the sorts of things that people buy when in gin. When sober, however, people buy monumentally dull things such as ink-cartridges, socks and salad spinners. And who would – deep down, in their heart of hearts – rather have an ink-cartridge than a pirate hat? And no one has ever, in the annals of human history, drunk too much gin and purchased a salad spinner. That’s because gin makes you buy the right thing.
4. You Can Never Win An Argument With Gin. It’s a fearsome opponent. Argue with it and it will just stonewall you. Every time. You can rant, you can shout, you can be as incisive and logical as you like but you will never, ever win. Its silence will overwhelm any argument and make you look rather foolish. It will, however, clear you a nice space at the bar and prevent people from engaging you in conversation. On balance though, you shouldn’t argue with gin.
5. You Can Never Win A Fight With Gin. If arguing with it hasn’t worked, you shouldn’t consider fighting it either. If you start a fight with gin, it’ll just hurt your hand or slip from your grasp, depending on whether it’s bottled or not. And you’ll look silly. I once saw a man in a park get into a spat with a bottle of fortified wine and – despite his commendable footwork and really rather impressive growling – he came second best and ended up out cold in a flower-bed. And that was only fortified wine. Gin is twice as strong as that.
6. Gin Has Anti-Gravity Properties. Gravity is, on the whole, a good thing. It stops us hurtling backwards when we sneeze and prevents our ceilings from becoming cluttered, but it has its drawbacks: If you ever trip or stumble, beastly gravity will attempt to hurl you at the nearest horizontal surface, usually the floor (though occasionally a table and once, in my case, a canal) and it will hurt. Gin counteracts this. With the correct amount of gin within you, should gravity suddenly strike, you will feel no pain. Nor will you be concerned about any indignity arising from a brush with gravity. In a straight fight, gin beats gravity.
7. Gin Propagates The Species. When people drink gin in public, they make often passes at other people. Has anyone ever made a pass at you in a tea-house? No, probably not. Has anyone ever made a pass at you in a bar (where there is gin)? Yes, almost certainly. So, there you go. If it weren’t for gin, we’d have no children. Which, ironically, would obviate one of the main causes of drinking. But gin consumption is a necessary device for the continued existence of humankind: Now go forth and drink gin, you know it makes sense.
