There are college-town bar-crawls and then there are sip trips. Both are intense for various reasons, including endurance. One focuses on how drunk you can get how fast and the other centers on how to pace yourself over the course of an afternoon.
One weekend this past winter, four family friends and I went and checked out five different sip spots around my college town: A distiller, two breweries, a ciderhouse, and a meadery. It was a belated “Hey kid! You’re 21 now. Let’s hit the town.”
We rated our beverages on a scale out of 10 and included our thoughts. Our results are below. Sheets may or may have been misplaced between stops. Other times we may have just straight up forgotten to include a stop. Oh well.
Neil Gaiman wrote in his blog some years ago: “I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.
Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.
So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.
Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do it. Make your mistakes, next year and forever.”
Gaiman’s words sum up what I want this new year. 2017 has been ushered in with a jokester vandalizing the famous Hollywood side into Hollyweed. I think this is just the kind of light spirits we can all benefit from as we usher in a new calendar year.
This year is going to bring unprecedented changes. A new president, for one. New chances at travel. Lots of good food that I’m going to do my best to keep track of and share my inventions. The new year is also going to bring a new slew of life events. Victories and triumphs, mistakes and failures. Heck, for all I know, I’ll be done with college sometime within the next 364 days. And I couldn’t be more excited to see is going to happen.
