This whole fracas with the Bihar Cabinet and its illiteracy levels, have really put a damper on things. It got me thinking back. Whose fault is it? Is it about bad students or bad teachers. Or is this too a vicious cycle. I wasn’t great at mathematics in school. In fact, I was rather pathetic at it. I don’t know if this was because my teacher didn’t excite or inspire me enough to make an effort to delve into the mysteries of algebra and geometry. But then I didn’t particularly like history or geography either.

Did that mean that I must have been a terrible student? I do know I gave my Mom many palpitations. But when pushed to the limit and told in no uncertain terms that I was likely to flunk my boards, I read the two books from page to page, alone, and cracked the paper to the delight of my parents and the amazement of my school!

This by no means is a medium to put down anyone. But rather to bring to the front that elusive ability called “will”. It allows us to do or become anything we choose to, if we want it badly enough. By making us strive to get there. Notwithstanding all of that, my history did not get any better. Imagine my dismay when, rather late in my existence, I discovered that 1830 (the year the Coffey column still was patented) did not mean 18th century but rather the 19th! I was mortified. It was the creation of blended scotch as a category that alerted me on the Phylloxera plague that almost destroyed the French vineyards in 1880. That stopped the supply of brandy to England (brandy and soda was their main tipple then), which allowed blended scotch entry. The British empire then took it everywhere they went, and the rest is history!

I understood the various revolutions and wars better seen through a haze of spirited libations. What I learned in the bar that the classroom so utterly failed to teach me. The two World Wars. The Allied leaders strategising over martinis. The French 75 cocktail (gin, champagne and lime) inspired by the French 75 guns from WWI and rumoured to hit you just as hard. Kamikaze shots inspired by the Japanese Kamikaze fighter pilot suicide squad. Kill and be killed. The prohibition in the US from 1920–33 leading to the underground speakeasy bars where the famous and the criminal rubbed shoulders. It was the time of cocktail revolution to mask the flavours of some very bad bootleg. How FDR repealed prohibition with a martini in his hand. The Singapore Sling was created at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore to quench the parched throats of British wives.

And rum. Which takes one back to the discovery of the coffin-shaped island of Barbados and ‘rumbullion’.

This reminded me of the slavery triangle, the Caribbean islands, rum stills that gave us this amazing cane spirit. Which the British armed forces adopted with a vengeance and became the front-runner of every soldier the Empire touched, including ours.

While absorbing all of this I discovered the map of the world and how the seas and the continents were aligned. Whisk(e)y taught me about the Atlantic ocean that bridged the expanse of the whiskey nations of Scotland and Ireland from the Americas. The Raki trail showed me the route from West Asia to Europe. The fruit brandies of Europe allowed me to understand that storing surplus can also mean evolving the fruit into a spirit that needs far less maintenance. Which opened up the ideology of the surplus of a land being converted into their native or traditional spirit. Barley in Britain made both beer and whiskey. Grapes made wine and brandy in France, Italy, Spain and Germany. Russia began making vodka with potato and then switched to wheat. Poland made its vodka from Rye. Germans made beer from wheat as well as barley. We made all ours from molasses!

I am now more in the know than I ever was. And I continue to learn. Apart from that one aberration in Std X, the only calculation I do well is planning the requirements for a party of 2,000 people. It’s a piece of cake. But bread before it, please. I like it better. I do not want to end up like Marie Antoinette, queen of France, who was guillotined for asking her hungry subjects to eat cake if they didn’t have bread!

Shatbhi Basu is a mixologist, author, television host and head of Stira bartending academy in Mumbai

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