The Cocktail Hour Edition
On rituals, non-alc cocktails, and marking transitions
Colin here. We’ve written in WITI about the surge in non-alcoholic products. As more and more people re-evaluate their relationship to booze, there’s been a ton of new things seeking to satiate the flavors and textures of cocktails without the punch, or hangover.
But aside from the inebriation factor, one of the most interesting parts about a cocktail is that it often serves as a punctuation mark in your day. It is the shift in the pace and rhythm, from work mode to wind down and relax a bit mode. Since our days aren’t broken up by a commute from home to work, the days seem to be blending all together, culminating in a flurry of back to back calls and little delineation between anything.
Didion nailed it when describing her cold, dry martini ritual and why it was important:
I need an hour alone before dinner, with a drink, to go over what I’ve done that day. I can’t do it late in the afternoon because I’m too close to it. Also, the drink helps. It removes me from the pages. So I spend this hour taking things out and putting other things in. Then I start the next day by redoing all of what I did the day before, following these evening notes. When I’m really working I don’t like to go out or have anybody to dinner, because then I lose the hour. If I don’t have the hour, and start the next day with just some bad pages and nowhere to go, I’m in low spirits.
So, even if you’re not drinking, the idea of a ritual moment is immensely interesting as a way to signal to your brain that it is time to let up for a moment. GQ writer Gabriella Paella called out how it is the ritual, and not the alcoholic proof, that is important:
My husband and I began to punctuate our work days by putting on some music, pulling out our nice glasses, and pouring ourselves one. It’s the liquid equivalent of an exhale, a small but fortifying moment of pleasure. I feel a bit like Frasier and Niles having their foppish nightly sherry, but I embrace it. And taking up this ritual made something else come into relief. When I stopped drinking, the way I approached my life did a 180: I worked harder, for more hours, woke up before the sun rose to run miles and miles, and was looking at a screen more often than not. The parts of my life that should have been most pleasurable sometimes felt more like killing time between everything else. I had become—I shudder to admit this—productive.
The case for a sober cocktail hour is, ultimately, the case for any cocktail hour: because our culture, by and large, forces us to be productivity obsessed. Taking this time carves out a moment to unwind from the day, to reconnect with others, to be present. It offers a liminal third space between work and home, even if all three spaces happen to be in our homes right now.
Why is this interesting?
Working from home throughout a year of the pandemic has brought upon lots of new behaviors. For better or worse, many of them are tied to productivity and optimization. It makes sense, given all of the competing things that need to be balanced. Some people work in pushups or sit ups every hour to force themselves to move. While others have figured out how to carve out early morning hours to do deep work before being bombarded with video screens, etc. But it is also important to figure out small milestones throughout your day as subtle markers. And the notion of cracking open a drink, non-alcoholic or not, as a cue to your brain, is an interesting and timeless hack to bridge from the late afternoon into the evening, where you can unwind from the pressures of the day. (CJN)
Chart of the Day:
From the FT piece on NBA Topshot, the NFT sports card phenomenon. (NRB)
Quick Links:
How Salesforce became Silicon Valley’s best late-stage tech investor (NRB)
There’s a Better Way to Parent: Less Yelling, Less Praise (NRB)
Thanks for reading,
Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN)
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