The drunken route of Lawrence Osborne: alcohol in countries without bars
Few cases in which nationality matters so much. Generally, it is one more thing. Innocuous. You can print some character, cultural flair, and a passport that opens or closes doors. However, when talking about To drink or not to drink. an alcoholic odyssey , it should be emphasized that its author, Lawrence Osborne , its English.
He was born in 1958 in a land where pubs are branches of the office (as Ramón Gómez de la Serna used to say about Spanish social gatherings) and pint glasses function as 'souvenirs'. Detail to take into account when approaching this book, originally published in 2013 and recently published in Spanish by Gatopardo. “ If you were raised in a suburban English suburb, you grew up drenched in alcohol ”, He assures. Another preliminary note should also be given. Osborne, columnist in various media and author of novels such as hunters in the dark or 'old-fashioned' travel as the naked tourist , resides mainly in Bangkok. And, although he is used to nomadism, he can keep his dipsomaniac ways in the thai capital . Some habits that define his personality and make him find ambrosia in a liquor glass.
To drink or not to drink. an alcoholic odyssey
Accustomed to drinking "from the cradle to the grave, without thinking" , Osborne sets off to visit various parts of the globe to see how this ceremony of drunkenness unfolds in each one. He begins in Milan with a gin and tonic, recalls his stages in the British countryside, invokes the Greek Dionysus, says goodbye to the year in Dubai, goes to Pakistan to inquire about this act (only legal for non-Muslims) and, finally, pays homage to their places of worship.
Those bars he needs” as well as oxygen or shirts ”, because alcohol weaves together not only narratives but also forges friendships or creates pilgrimages. Substitute the sacred for the pagan . What is the secret of his magnetism and why does it generate so much literature? “For millennia, it has been a favorite drug in all cultures derived from the Greeks. And also of medieval Islam. It lends itself to metaphor. The blood color of wine, for example, has provided mystics with endless material. But the 'alcohol' itself, maybe that's a different matter." Osborne responds via email to Traveler.es.
“Addiction stories are eternally popular. There is a romantic dimension to this flirtation with dementia and madness. . As a child, I was thrilled and terrified by the stories of the epic and murderous drunkenness of Alexander the Great , in the course of which he killed the people he loved and later repented when he was sober. It seemed to make him tragically human”, he continues, insisting that this dual dimension has been the impetus for him to spout for more than 220 pages on alcohol.
And about what he represents in each State, depending on the idiosyncrasies or official beliefs. For Osborne, for example, Greece and Japan are the easiest places to drink. Utah, in the United States, and Egypt, the most complicated. “ In Pakistan, a bar is like a hallucination . In Tokyo, like a living room where you can spend days and nights, ”he manages to say, boasting Spain, Italy, Greece, France and Japan: "These are the best by far".
Lawrence Osborne in Bangkok
“It is not clear what offends us more, the hiding of women under the hijab or the soft drinks that replace the majestic bottles of wine, the pathetic bottle of water that replaces a decent Brunello. We think there is a link between the prohibitions that govern women and alcohol”, he dares to express in the Persian Gulf region. “ The drink works as a wedge of freedom in a land harassed by religious dressed in black ”, he repeats later in that same geographical area.
His long-awaited freedom puts him in danger on different occasions. In Sungai Kolok, border town of Thailand cornered by terrorism, he blows up the ATM where he was going to withdraw money. In Solo, an island in Java and the cradle of local jihadism (Bin Laden posters adorn the streets) He asks Koranic school students where to get a beer. In a restaurant in Lebanon, together with an important Hezbollah cleric, he accompanies his shawarma with this barley elixir. And he will show how to toast with Champagne in Oman or how to get drunk in Abu Dhabi or hostile Islamabad.
Osborne walks through these corners of the world offering his reflections on alcohol and leaving bring out social reality through the concoctions that he obtains in clandestine slums or luxury terraces . More than once he refers to his roots to justify his approach to drinking. "This taste may be genetic, and may have something to do with my Irish blood," he says in a conversation with Traveler, pointing out that wine and whiskey are his eternal revitalizers: "They are the two that endure and evolve. I love aged rum, for sure, and I have a gin and tonic every day. I love the word 'tonic', like it's doing me some good”.
He goes so far as to compare this drug with others, stating that "the purest dopamine stimulant is cocaine, but alcohol is close behind." “In some aspects it is more ‘dirty’, more complex and at the same time more dangerous because it also affects other receptors. However, as it drenches us in dopamine it is also revitalizing, liberating, euphoric and sharpens the senses . Act slowly, as you wake up, ”he lists.
Lawrence Osborne in China
For Osbourne, the bar is a refuge and alcohol a shore to run aground on . However, the rites change according to the occasion. He prefers to dedicate his soul to these spirits. “It's like a solitary communion with absent people, at least that's how I feel when I drink alone. I speak with the absent and the dead”, he argues, convinced that “the alcoholic repels everyone around him. In fact, it is the unconscious desire behind such a drink. By losing control of one's inhibition, one isolates oneself and becomes dishonorable. The pathos is enormous." A disgrace that leads him to question the essence of these distillates. “ Is alcohol a substance that separates your consciousness from your true self and therefore from others? If that is true, we spend our entire lives in a state of subtle falsehood. But, is alcohol the creator of the mask or precisely what rips it off from us? ”, He asks himself rhetorically, without reaching an answer.
Not even at the end of this alcoholic odyssey. The other way around: after this wandering, the unknown continues: “ There are two states: drinking and not drinking . We balance between the two. Perhaps every drinker dreams of his own abstinence and every abstinent Muslim or Christian dreams of a copy at the end of the rainbow”, he muses, deciding that “the drinker moves away from normality because he wants to escape from the prosaic; he is the side effect of the wild belief that the prosaic is all there is. Osborne prefers poetics. And, like a good Englishman, he looks for her in a glass full of liquor.