“One bourbon, one scotch, and one beer
Well, I ain’t seen my baby since I don’t know when
I’ve been drinking bourbon whiskey, scotch, and gin
Gonna get high, man, I’m gonna get loose
Need me a triple-shot of that juice
Gonna get drunk, don’t you have no fear
I want one bourbon, one scotch, and one beer
One bourbon, one scotch, one beer”
- Rudy Toombs (1953)
“One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer” (originally “One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer”) is a blues song written by Rudy Toombs and recorded by Amos Milburn in 1953. It is one of several drinking songs recorded by Milburn in the early 1950s that placed in the top ten of the Billboard R&B chart. Other artists released popular recordings of the song, including John Lee Hooker in 1966 and George Thorogood in 1977. I distinctly remember when George Thorogood’s version of the song came out, and it was fun to sing along.
But I won’t be singing the song again for a while… I am happy to say that this month I am celebrating 1 year of being alcohol-free, primarily for health reasons. It was prompted by my cardiologist, who noted that alcohol, as well as caffeine, could be a trigger for my atrial fibrillation, so I immediately stopped both. Research shows that any alcohol intake can elevate the risk of developing AFib, the most common type of heart arrhythmia. Observational studies indicate that even one drink per day—a glass of wine, beer, or a shot of spirits—can increase the risk by approximately 6–16% compared with abstaining from alcohol. Although a cardiac ablation procedure resolved my A-Fib problem for now, I decided to do whatever I can to reduce the chance of a recurrence. In addition, I also knew from my oncologist that some studies suggest that alcohol could also increase the risk of my prostate cancer becoming more aggressive. Men who consumed at least seven drinks per week were found to be three times more likely to develop high-grade prostate cancer compared to non-drinkers, highlighting a dose-dependent relationship between alcohol and cancer aggressiveness. Both of my doctors felt that an occasional drink would be OK, but no alcohol would be even better.
At some point, I may have a drink on special occasion (like my 70th birthday next year), but I certainly feel good and healthy after staying away from alcohol for the past 12 months. I was never actually a big drinker- most of my life we didn’t even have alcohol in the house unless we were having a party. I would have a beer or two at a social event, concert, or a baseball game, and an occasional glass of wine with dinner at a restaurant, but I hardly ever drank at home. I’m not sure why, but a former employee used to always give me a bottle of Crown Royal whiskey for Christmas, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her I didn’t drink it. After a few years I ended up with several unopened bottles of Crown Royal sitting in our cabinet. I did find that later in life, dealing with the anxiety of all the things that come with getting older, I was more frequently relaxing with a drink at night before going to bed, but that was about the extent of it. Over my lifetime, I could count the times I had too much to drink on one hand, but there were definitely a few. And my most memorable mistakes came from bourbon, scotch, and beer—
ONE BOURBON
I learned to drink bourbon in Boy Scouts, of all places. I was active in Scouting as a kid. We had one of the biggest troops in the Philadelphia area. After Boy Scouts, you could go on to our high adventure Explorer Post, which was mainly kids in their late teens and early twenties. Bourbon was popular in that crowd- I particularly remember drinking “Old Grand Dad” and “Wild Turkey”. Of course most of it was done in secret, but in general, the adults tended to ignore our drinking, as most of them were drinkers themselves, and I suppose they saw it as us “becoming men” and teaching us to “drink responsibly”.
I believe it was December 1974 when the Explorer Post was having its annual Christmas party at one of the guys’ homes. We weren’t really friends, but I knew him fairly well because in addition to scouts, both he and his parents were also active in our church. The night before the party he called me on the phone and said a couple of guys were staying overnight to help clean-up afterwards and asked if I could also stay over. I thought it was a strange request, but I reluctantly said “OK”. I was 17 years old at the time- one of the younger guys in the group, and I remember I had recently gotten my driver license. The party was well attended, and we spent the time drinking, listening to music, and watching football on TV. The party host kept filling up my glass with bourbon, enticing me to drink up. I started feeling a bit woozy. I soon found out no one else was staying overnight- just me. “What?” Somehow it switched from I was “helping to clean up” to I was “staying over because I was in no condition to drive”. I was confused by it all, but at that point the room was spinning and I just wanted to go to sleep. Before I knew it, everyone was gone, except for me and the host. I was 17 years old and he was 19- not a big age difference today, but at the time he seemed way older than me. His parents had gone to bed. I was sitting on the basement sofa, and he came over to me and said, “Can you try to pop a hard one?” It was 50 years ago, but I still remember it like it was yesterday. “What????” He asked me again. I said “NO” repeatedly. He responded “Come on!” I sobered up pretty quick and continued with my defiant “NO!” I didn’t know what else to do. Should I run? Scream to wake up his parents? Would I be able to fight him off? He finally let up and suggested I sleep on the floor in his room. I was scared to death but knew I was still in no condition to drive so I reluctantly agreed. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep a wink, constantly afraid he was going to jump down on me from his bed at some point. As soon as I saw the sun starting to come up through his window, I flew out of their house and made my way home. I quit the Post right after that, but I didn’t tell any adults what happened- I just wanted to forget about it. Many years later, I read in the paper he had been arrested for sexual abuse of a minor. As sad as that was, I felt happy that my recollection wasn’t my imagination running wild- he was truly a predator. I was glad I was able to dodge a more serious attack from him back then. At that point I did call the police and tell them about my previous experience, although it was not particularly relevant to their specific case against him. It took me about another 40 years to get up the courage to try bourbon again because of that bitter memory.
ONE BEER
The bourbon I experimented with when I was young was subsequently replaced with beer- “Miller” beer became the beverage of choice amongst my peers. While not all that crazy in the scheme of things, my most memorable experience with beer was on August 26th, 1978, shortly after the death of Chicago’s Terry Kath by a self-inflicted gunshot wound. It was Chicago’s first show in the area with their new guitarist, Donnie Dacus, replacing the late Terry Kath. I just had to go, even though it was a bit of a ride up to Allentown PA where they were playing at the Fair. I went with a friend, and a carload of beer. I had just turned 21, so I would have been legal. But for some reason, we decided to sneak beer into the venue. It was before the days of any kind of security check at public venues. I remember my friend stuffing beer cans into my socks. We basically drank beer before, during, and after the show. We always loved seeing Chicago, but the new guitarist seemed out of place. It was a bit of a bummer. At least the band was continuing on, and by the end of the show we were feeling pretty good (more from the beer than from the performance of the new singer/guitarist). I recall we drove to Lafayette College after the concert in search of a mutual friend who was attending school there. I remember roaming around the college, but I don’t think we ever found him- that part is a bit of a blur. Anyway, we eventually made our way home (my friend never should have been driving, but we got home safely). Although I was 21, my parents were still very strict, and my dad would have gone crazy if I came home drunk, so my friend let me stay over at his house. It was memorable because that was the first time I ever got physically sick from drinking. His mom was cool and took care of me until I was good enough to go home the next day- she knew my parents would have hit the roof if they saw me in that condition. I remember thinking I didn’t ever want to feel like that again, and that was the start of learning to drink responsibly (although I had to learn the lesson again when I got older).
ONE SCOTCH
Although I experimented with whiskey as a kid, I rarely drank it as an adult. It wasn’t until I retired that I started hearing more about scotch whisky and decided to give it a try. I enjoyed it. I started reading up more about it- the different regions where it came from, the difference between single and blended malts, etc. I didn’t drink much, but I found an occasional shot hit the spot and I enjoyed sampling different varieties. My days of overdoing it were long gone (or so I thought). One night around the time of my discovering scotch, we had tickets for a show at the Ardmore Music Hall. I think it was about 10 years ago. I didn’t want to do shots there- I preferred just sipping on a drink in social settings. I decided to try a “scotch and soda” – my newfound enjoyment of scotch, watered down with some club soda. The waitress asked if I wanted a double. “Sure, why not?” I found that unlike straight scotch, scotch and soda goes down like water. I could barely taste the alcohol. “Would you like another?” “Sure.” That repeated several times. After too many doubles, I went from feeling fine to feeling like I was hit by a Mack truck. I could barely stand up. The room was spinning. I got horribly sick, and remember vomiting out the passenger car window all the way home. I didn’t drink anything at all for a long time after that. I eventually got back into an occasional single neat scotch at night, although I never again had the dreaded “scotch and soda”, and never again got sick from drinking too much.
And that’s about it for my alcohol adventures- nothing too outrageous, right? I had some fun times and a couple of not-so-fun times. I was always thankful that I never became dependent on it. As beer was generally my drink of choice, I’m now happy that there are so many good varieties of non-alcoholic brews that hit the spot when I want a drink, particularly in social settings. I’m finding that most bars/restaurants/music venues now carry a nice assortment of NA beers. I don’t really miss having “one bourbon, one scotch, one beer”. So I’ll close by popping open my favorite non-alcoholic Japanese Asahi Beer while watching the Eagles game on TV tonight. “Kanpai!” (cheers!)
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