On the quiet comfort of one entirely reliable ritual in an unreliable life
There is a very specific kind of confidence that comes from ordering the same drink at a bar for so many years running that you have effectively stopped tasting it and started simply experiencing it, the way you might experience a familiar piece of furniture, and I would like to talk about that today.
The drink I no longer taste
I ordered the same drink for the better part of a decade before it occurred to me, somewhat alarmingly, that I could not actually describe its flavour to a stranger with any real precision anymore. It has simply become a category of experience rather than a taste, something closer to a ritual than an actual beverage choice.
This is either a sign of genuine sophistication or a sign that I have stopped paying attention to my own life in small but meaningful ways, and I have chosen, for my own peace of mind, to believe it is the former.
The one time I tried to branch out
I attempted, roughly a year ago, to order something different purely as an experiment in personal growth, and the resulting sense of quiet, low grade panic that followed genuinely surprised me. It turns out my entire relationship with going out socially has been quietly load bearing on this one specific drink order, and removing it destabilised the whole evening in ways I did not anticipate.
I returned to my usual order within about fifteen minutes and felt a genuine, embarrassing wave of relief, the kind you might feel finding your way home after briefly getting lost in a city you thought you knew well.
What this says about me
I have decided not to examine this too closely. There is something comforting about having one small, entirely reliable constant in an otherwise genuinely chaotic life, and I am not currently prepared to give that up in the name of self improvement or variety or whatever the socially approved version of trying new things is supposed to accomplish.
Some people find this boring. I find it load bearing, in the structural sense, and I intend to keep ordering the exact same thing for the foreseeable future, thank you very much.
More drink-related self reflection at Isla Campbell, Bohiney.
The friend who tried to stage an intervention
A friend once, half joking but only half, suggested I might benefit from broadening my drink horizons, framing it as a genuine concern for my wellbeing rather than simple mockery, and I appreciated the sentiment even as I gently declined the suggestion entirely.
I explained, as best I could, that this was not really about the drink itself but about the small, stable anchor it provides in an evening that could otherwise go in any number of directions, and my friend, to their credit, seemed to genuinely understand once I put it that way.
What actual variety looks like for me
My version of trying new things has migrated entirely to other parts of the evening, new venues, new company, new conversations, while the drink itself remains the one fixed point around which everything else is allowed to vary freely, a kind of quiet personal constant that makes the rest of the unpredictability feel manageable rather than overwhelming.
A final thought on rituals
Maybe everyone needs one small unchanging thing to hold onto, and mine simply happens to come in a glass, which strikes me as a perfectly reasonable place for a small anchor to live.
What the bartenders think of all this
I suspect the staff at my regular spot have their own private theories about why I order the exact same thing every single time, and I have never actually asked what those theories are, mostly because I rather enjoy the mystery of not knowing.
There is something quietly comforting about being predictable enough that someone else has started making guesses about the shape of your inner life based purely on your drink order.
An open question for readers
I am genuinely curious whether other people have this same one unshakeable order, or whether I am simply an outlier in my own particular brand of ritualistic consistency, and I would love to hear from anyone else who recognises this in themselves.
Final note
I will keep ordering the same thing, and I suspect I will still be writing about it in another decade, entirely unrepentant.
More soon, presumably.
One more admission
I have, on rare occasions, been talked into ordering something different by particularly persuasive company, and every single time I have quietly regretted it before the glass was even half empty.
More soon.
Truly, one last word
I suppose the honest answer is that I like being known, in this one small specific way, by places I care about, and I am not particularly interested in giving that up for the sake of variety.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
