Alright folks,
One of the Maritimers is here, you amatures can go back to your daily lives and let the expert reply
This goes against the above stereotype however, I didn't A) drink until I was of age (19 here) and B) I didn't like beer when I first started drinking. Oh my how times have changed (for the better
).
I started out drinking with girlie drinks, a Singapore Sling was my drink of choice those first few months. While they can be thick and sugary they tasted like fruit punch and went down fairly well. I found beer just too bitter.
Now I like and breath Coca-Cola. A staple of mine in my high school and undergrad days. In fact one of the happiest days of my life was when the univeristy changed their contract from Pepsi to Coke. I danced in the hallways, I really did. So it was very dissapointing to me to NOT like Rum and Coke when I first tried it. I tried the beforementioned beer (Keith's), Rum and Coke, Singapore Sling, and I had a gladiator shot on my 19th b-day.
Now I'm a big fan of beer, live for Keith's. Rum and coke is one of my favourites a classic.
If you want to learn how to drink beer, bring gum to the bar with you, it helps the beer go down smoother. Start with something lighter like Coors Light, then move to Blue, and of course end up at Keith's (pronounced 'Keetz' for the record).
In terms of rum, when warm rum is mixed with ice cold Pepsi or Coke it goes down much smoother. You can't taste the rum, but it doesn't taste like cola, it's a different taste, not really bitter. However if you have mildly cold fountain cola mixed with rum it just isn't as good.
There's a local dairy here in Cape Breton called Scotsburn that makes juice. Their Fruit Punch is by far the sugariest juice I've ever had. You can mix it 50/50 juice/vodka without tasting the vodka. The bitterness of the vodka dilutes the sugary taste to make it taste like normal fruitpunch (I've had some messy nights because of that). So sugar and sweet mixed with alcohol also will help you become more accustomed to alcohol.
Now, just to be clear, this is only *IF* you really want to. You don't have to become an alcoholic, you don't have to go to the bar to have fun. I used to be a REALLY shy individual, and found that alcohol helped take away my anxiety when meeting people, and being in a crowd of people I don't know. Now I don't get paniced when I'm surrounded by people I don't know, in fact I handle myself very well and am the outgoing person I always wanted to be.
The theory above applies to anything. If you want to lean yourself off of sugar in coffee, order a larger size with the same amount of sugar. Drink that for a bit, then when you lean yourself back on the smaller size reduce the amount of sugar. That's exactly how I went from taking my Tim's meduim with 1 sugar to going black altogether.
I don't reccomend mixing energy drinks with alcohol, I'm not chemist or biologist but I'm sure there's that warning for a reason. And frankly I like my heart, you know, not randomly stopping, but that's just me :P