Written by Joyce Lovelace

This will be an occasional feature here at The Professor’s site, often featuring guest writers.

Blame this question on too many hot, humid, sleepless nights and the erratic mind of a post-menopausal woman. This is a question about people in general and is not meant as a personal attack so please excuse the acerbic tone.

Why do we disdain people’s tastes in wine and beer but not other beverages? For instance I’ve never heard anyone say, “OMG you drink Grape Nehi?! That stuff is swill! Only Fanta is worth drinking! Only idiot neophytes drink Nehi!”

Now I am speaking of disdain for the person who likes it. A review of the beverage itself is fair game. If a person is reviewing a beverage they have every right to say that, to them, Tropicana Grapefruit Juice tastes like potato peels drenched in battery acid. But why put down the folks who like it?

I don’t recall running into this with hard liquor though maybe it’s there too.

It’s kind of like art, and I know that brewing beer or wine is an art, but darn it I like poker playing dogs! And yes Kincaid too, though I understand his personality is something awful, but then couldn’t that be said of some of the Great Masters too? I don’t think Pollack won any miss congeniality contests.

Would we have had the same blather over the “beer summit” if it hadn’t been beer? The President had a glass of Florida orange juice, Mr. Crowley had Maxwell house coffee (black, 2 sugars), Mr. Gates had Earl Gray tea with lemon and VP Biden had chocolate milk and cookies. OK yes – the media carnival would have had to make a production out of it.

Anyway -just askin- now I’ll go have a cup of organic coffee with local goat’s milk and stevia for sweetener – and yes dammit it’s instant coffee!