I couldn't stand it.
I ordered fermented skate for the first time in my life.
He said he would eat water parsley and drink soju.
Making pickled fermented skate brought back memories of my childhood.
I've been to quite a few banquets.
In today's terms, I guess you could call him a 'professional attendee'.
I was never invited, but I went with my grandmother.
Birthdays of older relatives, housewarming parties, promotion celebrations, 60th birthday parties, 70th birthday parties, mountain and water parties, weddings, etc.
I quite enjoyed the atmosphere filled with people I had never seen before and foods I had never seen before.
At that time, the food I was looking forward to seeing at the banquet table was marinated fermented skate.
I never told anyone.
It was a secret expectation.
The taste of the fermented skate hidden between the pickled radish and cucumber, whose texture had changed, and the spicy bellflower root was something I had never experienced before.
But something was missing.
It was soju.
I could intuitively tell that marinated fermented skate was more suitable as a snack with soju than as a side dish for rice.
It seems like only yesterday that I was watching adults drinking soju with pickled skate, shaking their heads and making a “keu” sound, and wondering how much time would pass before I could drink soju myself…

---From "Things for the Desire of Minari"

It's aperitif time.
A drink to be had before a meal.
Alcohol that is not consumed with side dishes.
A drink that is complete with just alcohol.
This is an aperitif.
The time between 3 and 5 o'clock is also the time for aperitifs.
I quite like the aperitifs I drink at this time.
Each drink has its own charm, and it's good when you're sad, happy, bored, or tired, but it's also good to drink as an aperitif.
Mostly beer, but sometimes I drink aperitifs.
(...) My heart is so excited.
After drinking all this alcohol, I start thinking about what kind of alcohol I will drink and what kind of food I will eat with it.
Even without drinking an aperitif, I think about today's snack and today's drink, but if I drink an aperitif, I think about it a little more passionately.
I am amazed by the power of the aperitif and feel a surge of passion that I never had before.
I wonder if this light, refreshing, and cool drink has such power.

---From "Drinking Between 3 and 5"

I abstained from alcohol for a while.
Since you wrote 'for a while', I guess you could say abstinence.
The reason I decided to drink again was because of Osamu Dazai.
I couldn't help but have a drink on his anniversary.
Yesterday, June 19th, was a day to honor him.
The day his body was found and the day he was born.
A day that appears and disappears from this world.
It was a cherry tree.
Those who commemorate Osamu Dazai call this day Cherry Blossom Day.
I heard that the short story he published a month before he died was "Cherry," and that it was around June 19th, which was cherry season.
What do you do on the anniversary of his death? Do you eat cherries? Or do you drink alcohol? What kind of alcohol do you drink? He was inseparable from alcohol, and I admired his drinking style, so I wanted to make a cherry wine and drink it on the anniversary of his death.
I learned how to make cherry wine from someone who writes books about alcohol and also makes alcohol.
At times like this, I change quite actively.
The problem was that I couldn't get the cherries.

---From "This is what it means to drink like Osamu Dazai"

right.
Oysters and wine were foods that contributed to the spirit.
Food that lifts my soul, not just gets my blood flowing and fills my flesh.
Betraying the physical solemnity of our being attached to the earth.
It was the first time I felt that way after eating food.
So how could I not love it? I think it's because of the mineral flavor of oysters.
It's also because of the Chablis that sticks to the oysters.
At the time, I didn't know why oysters went so well with Chablis.
That Chablis is the name of a region, that the white wine made from grapes grown there is called Chablis, and that it is a cool land covered with ancient oyster fossils.
It wasn't just the September Parisian air and my mood that made the oysters and Chablis so filling.
Chablis was a wine grown on oysters.
Drinking Chablis was like drinking oysters.

---From "Oysters and Chablis"

Having started out with Kakubin from Suntory and having enjoyed Johnnie Walker and Glenlivet highballs, I was a bit surprised to learn that they also make highballs with Lagavulin.
I thought that a sweet whiskey would be more suitable for a highball than a smoky one, and I also thought that Lagavulin was too strong a drink to make a highball.
I tried it and it wasn't true.
A highball made with Lagavulin had something different from a highball made with Johnnie Walker Red or Glenfiddich 12 Year Old.
Lagavulin flavor.
The Lagavulin Highball tasted like Lagavulin.

---From "The Excitement of Highball"

This is a piece written with a joyful heart.
I wrote it as if I was nagging someone I wanted to share my night with.
So I talked a bit.
I usually don't talk much.
There are many times when vocalization can feel like a hassle.
I wonder why I have to put all this into words.
Rather than talking about trivial things, it's better to drink without saying anything.
Maybe it's because I like talking.
When I listen to the words being conveyed through the voice, I don't want to say just anything.
I have always thought that silence contains much richer things than words, so if words are inferior to silence, it is better to just leave them in your mouth.

---From the "Epilogue"