It Does a Body Good

The experience of liquid matter is complicated.  Water, Coffee, Alcohol and Juice all deserve capital lettersto signal respect for these millennium old staples of the human diet.  Largely and unabashedly, this blog will focus on the role, production, experience, and significance of alcohol in our society, but we should never ignore those other staples of the liquid diet, namely water, coffee, and juice.  And, as a sign or signal of good faith, I will begin with a non-alcoholic drink on a non-traditional and versatile topic: milk.  

My relationship with milk is complicated.  Growing up in the late 80s and early 90s I was subject to round-the-clock milk campaign put forth by the America's Dairy Farmers, the American Dairy Association, and the National Dairy Board.  Everyone old enough to remember those days probably remembers the "It does a body good" slogan and the catchy "You Drink Milk and It Shows" songs which were quintessentially 90s.  I was young at the time, but these commercials had a profound impact on me personally because my father completely bought into it: starting in the late 80s, we were required to drink a nice hefty glass of milk every single night at dinner.  I hated it.  My sister and I envied my brother because he sat nearest to some nondescript plant in our kitchen, and he would frequently dispose of his milk by pouring it in the plant.  On the other hand, that eventually became one magnificent plant.  Yes, so, many of my earliest memories of milk are of me crying at the dinner table and throwing a temper-tantrum, yet being forced to drink my milk anyway; by this point I had just made the entire situation worse because I had left the milk sitting on the table all dinner, and it had acquired a warm, glutinous and, at the time, entirely revolting texture.  

Yet, I suppose it helped me.  

When the US was taken by storm with the "Got Milk" ad campaign later in the 90s, I was already thoroughly assimilated into the milk-drinkers culture, and, by the time I entered college, I pioneered the virtues of milk among my friends in the dorms through the examples of the White Russian and an unkept, slovenly cultural icon many now know simply as The Dude.  

Yes, milk has come a long ways since the dawn of man, and milk advertising has come a long ways since the late 80s, and whether you are drinking milk for dinner, putting it in your coffee, dipping your Oreos in it, or using it in any variety of cocktails, it is a staple of our collective human culture and required in any home bar.