The phrase boat drinks has kept my attention since I first saw it employed in the movie Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead. Ironically, they talk of boat drinks, a sense of freedom, while being in Denver, Colorado, a land locked city. I am similarly land locked, longing for the smell of salt air and in the breeze and the refreshing and intoxicating boat drinks. Being in the southwest, where margaritas rule the roost, (I happily oblige to drink them) boat drinks are an after thought. Yet, while growing up on the coast exposed to salt air and clam shacks, rum punches and dark and stormies defined summer. These were boat drinks, refreshing and inebriating. Sure, the hot summer days could wear you out, but two rum punches carried their own weight as well. The combination of boat drinks and salt air are both olfactory and sensory remembrances of the sea, hard work, family, friends and freedom.
A wave of memories floods over me as I sit in the summer's heat and drink that dark and stormy. What is even better is that these are fond memories.
