Scotch vincit omnia.

That’s what I had engraved on a silver flask for my friend Lane a few years ago. It was technically her birthday, but it was really just another excuse for us to bond over our shared love of the single malt. We pondered the virtues of Balvenie (12-year-old) and the smoky Lagavulin, debated whether adding ice or water was permissible (I voted for water, on those nights when we wanted to prolong our warm and pleasant intoxication). Even better, Scotch didn’t give me a hangover.

It was always good for impressing the girls, ordering Scotch. (It impressed the boys, too.) It somehow held onto a reputation as a man’s drink – a dad’s drink. I remember my dad swirling the tawny liquid in his thick square glass when I was a kid. It was a mystery to me back then. It had definitely been an acquired taste – but once acquired, enthusiastically indulged. It had something to do with that time in college when an older woman (she a junior, I a trembling sophomore) bought me a bourbon in a smoky bar with the clear intention of seducing me. I was duly impressed, not to mention stricken with terror.

Eventually I was the older woman, or at least the one ordering Scotch when everyone else was still sipping Cosmos. There was a brief fling with Mojitos and one or two icy Martinis, but Scotch was reliable, comforting, powerful, refreshingly not sweet. Drinking Scotch, I was serious. In a family of Scotch-loving Finns (my brothers and my dad were always swapping bottles at Christmas), I was finally one of the boys.

I can’t tell exactly when or how the occasional glass of Cabernet started to drift in. It may have been somehow tied to the fact that Lane and I were drifting apart. I got into a serious relationship, which meant more romantic dinners (ergo, more red wine) and fewer nights with my friends at the bar (ergo, fewer chicks to pick up). I suppose that, after all, there were new worlds to conquer.

I wonder if Lane still has the flask. I have a bottle of Balvenie in my cupboard, but I only break it out when I’m entertaining, in case someone else wants a nip. Oh hell, I’ve gotten old.