Bottling Menby Celine R. Lopez of the Philippine Star’s YS
August 17, 2002 | 12:00am
Bette Davis said, "I’ve always liked men more than women." I could have easily said that myself. More than fashion, more than facials, more than martinis  I like men best of all. Most of my best friends are men.
Maybe it’s because they are less fussy. You can gossip all you want and they forget about it in a nanosecond. You can be sure not to fight over the same outfit. (Well, there are few exceptions to that rule: 1. Taking it off 2. My gay friends). And most exquisitely, there is none of that Alexis Colby and Crystal Carrington rivalry going on.
There are many ways to read a man. They are not really as hard to read as us women. That’s why I love them. They lie a lot, yes, but you always know. It’s very unfortunate for men that they do not bear the mystery of a Jackson Pollock painting. You can usually tell how they are with:
1. How they treat waiters
2. How they change tires
3. How they act around kids
4. How they treat animals
5. How they treat you on your first date
6. Calling patterns
7. How they are with their female friends
However, an interesting medium I have discovered about reading men is scrutinizing them through their choice of liquor. What your man drinks says a lot about him. A man’s taste in life is after all a reflection of the life that he lives.
Beer is the most basic of alcoholic beverages. It’s probably what they drank to fit in in high school, what they drank in frat parties in college and what they drink now because life is complicated enough for them to be troubled by what to drink. In other words, beer drinkers are very laid-back men, and they like it easy: women, life, money, cable TV. They have the best joke collection in town and are usually the painless party buddies. Painless, in the pragmatic sense, that it takes a lot of brewski to get whacked. This is the drink for the macho man. A man who would never get caught fiddling around with a glass with a tail below it. He loves his baseball cap, he loves his car and, if you’re nice and cute enough, he’ll love you too.
Now a scotch drinker is a complicated one. The men that I know who drink scotch are very pensive, neurotic, moody and like dark colors in their outfits. They usually have high-paying jobs, which allow them to take a swig of some pricey single malt without a care. The blended scotch guys are more of the man’s man. Hardworking, ripe and complex who dreams of making it to the Forbes 500 as much as he thinks of sex  he just wants to get hammered Cary Grant style. Scotch drinkers are usually old-world gentlemen  or at least they want to be. I mean a dapper silver fox who sips his scotch (not on the rocks) is very sexy. A 19 year-old who drinks it from the bottle is annoying. Again appropriateness rules in the scotch game.
Vodka drinkers are somewhat a more sophisticated version of the beer man. It is also a college drink. Usually watered down with some Hi-C, eventually it evolves into a sort of iceberg in a highball glass. Neither controversial nor common, a vodka drinker’s refinement elevates along with his knowledge of what makes good vodka. A grainy vodka drinker you know, the shit that should be mixed with really sweet juice or soda, is somewhat a person who just wants to get smashed. There is nothing wrong with that, but it’s not particularly fetching especially if one is trying to be the ladies man.
However, the more appreciation one has for the different types of vodka, the more respectable this particular vodka-drinking male is. There are Pearl, Belvedere and the other painstakingly distilled spirits that evoke a sensation rather than just a taste. Sipped, chilled with no accompaniments or garnishes except for some Frank Sinatra, this is the drink preferred by the man whom you would want to marry but unfortunately he’ll never marry you. Unless you’re hotter than him.
Cocktails drinkers are very dandy men. They may or not be gay, but they certainly love the lush life. They are the types who go to Beauty Bar and buy stuff for themselves and not their mothers. They know who Hedi Slimane is, they watch Art Films (and I mean the real ones not the straight to video B movies which pretend to call themselves art films), they are usually well-traveled, well-heeled, and they have a wardrobe that makes me wish I were a man instead. In more elegant joints in town a straight man with a curvaceous woman looped around his arm cradling a neon colored drink in a graceful piece of stemware would hardly raise an eyebrow. In more casual joints it might be a problem. It’s really hard to talk about T&A and Assunta de Rossi while sipping a cosmo. He’s a man who enjoys the finer things that life has to offer. You see, a cocktail is a carefully shaken concoction that can be delicious, or if done incorrectly, can be a disaster. A cocktail drinker is a connoisseur, a person who knows what’s good and what’s bad.
Whatever the case is, a cocktail man is never afraid to comment that your shoes and handbag just don’t go and he’ll probably know where you can go to buy a smart pair of boots that no one else has yet. If you are going out with such a guy, the only thing you’ll be fighting about is that your outfits are clashing and that you won’t look good together or maybe who finished the Kiehl’s Silk groom. Definitely not the man’s man, nor the ladies man, he’s the gal’s guy.
Martini drinkers are a hybrid of the scotch and cocktail drinkers. They hold that sexy old world appeal. It’s almost like when you’re in their presence they look like stills from grainy black and white films. Or perhaps James Bonds in disguise. But again the allure of the martini drinker only comes when he knows how he wants his martini done. A martini man is as unique as his choice of blend extra dry, stirred, shaken, which olive to use, vodka, gin, or dirty he’s a man who knows what he wants and knows how to get it.
They are always stylishly dressed even if it is only a combo of Helmut Lang jeans and a simple J. Lindeberg top. They are whores to aesthetic detail.
They like beautiful things, from stylish cars to well-cut trousers, and dream of wearing a bespoken suit with John Lobb shoes if the appropriate occasion does arise. They do not like these to show off, but rather they are just authorities of the good life. Though the martini is pretty much a cocktail, in essence it has a very different personality from its Technicolor cousin. A martini is a tad snobbier and more reserved. However, like the cocktail drinkers they are so into specifics. A blue blood martini drinker needs a chilled glass, a mixture shaken just with enough motions so that the ice does not dilute the drink. He is of course as we can see vain, urbane, a man of worldly tastes and has known to have made women cry.
A wine man is very much like a vodka man but just more overt in his level of ignorance or brilliance. There is the uh, red wine guy who’ll take red vinegar and chug it down and say what a treat! Or the vino rapist who will chug down a good glass and bang the glass on the table as if it were a tequila shot. Then there’s the wine expert who dangerously dances along the lines of being impressive and pretentious depending on how he dispenses his knowledge. It‚s easy to spot the Beavis from the true sommelier. The first kind just wants to impress a chick. You see wine is drunk not to get sloshed but to appreciate. So he may be a poser or a hopeless romantic with no clue about the provenance or good years of a worthy bottle. A slammer, which is described as the second one, just likes a good hit. He should just go for tequila and vie for the worm. The third is tricky, he can be a man of good breeding or a bore. Wine men are hard but worth the effort.
Champagne men are funny, as are champagne women. Unless you’re a sommelier who venerates the exquisite qualities of good bubbly, champagne is usually consumed for the idea and vibe it evokes. Whether on a fishing boat, a forest, camping site, wedding, cocktail party, a flute of champagne just makes everything seem opulent. It is a celebratory drink after all. So we drink and love the patrician aspect of it. Just like caviar, it would not hold the same elite gratification from it, if it were not reflective of the Robin Leach life. So a champagne guy is out to impress most of the time. He loves good things and is usually generous but also playful.
Tequilas, Goldshlaggers and their other one-shot relatives don’t really qualify in this list because they are usually guest starrers but not mainstays. Nobody I know calls his regular drink a Flaming Ferrari. So with all the useless study of men and what they drink it all boils down to one truth. After five or six of any of these babies, whether he is an ESPN jock or a James Bond wannabe, at the end of the day he’s still a man  and you know what I mean by that.
Maybe it’s because they are less fussy. You can gossip all you want and they forget about it in a nanosecond. You can be sure not to fight over the same outfit. (Well, there are few exceptions to that rule: 1. Taking it off 2. My gay friends). And most exquisitely, there is none of that Alexis Colby and Crystal Carrington rivalry going on.
There are many ways to read a man. They are not really as hard to read as us women. That’s why I love them. They lie a lot, yes, but you always know. It’s very unfortunate for men that they do not bear the mystery of a Jackson Pollock painting. You can usually tell how they are with:
1. How they treat waiters
2. How they change tires
3. How they act around kids
4. How they treat animals
5. How they treat you on your first date
6. Calling patterns
7. How they are with their female friends
However, an interesting medium I have discovered about reading men is scrutinizing them through their choice of liquor. What your man drinks says a lot about him. A man’s taste in life is after all a reflection of the life that he lives.
Beer is the most basic of alcoholic beverages. It’s probably what they drank to fit in in high school, what they drank in frat parties in college and what they drink now because life is complicated enough for them to be troubled by what to drink. In other words, beer drinkers are very laid-back men, and they like it easy: women, life, money, cable TV. They have the best joke collection in town and are usually the painless party buddies. Painless, in the pragmatic sense, that it takes a lot of brewski to get whacked. This is the drink for the macho man. A man who would never get caught fiddling around with a glass with a tail below it. He loves his baseball cap, he loves his car and, if you’re nice and cute enough, he’ll love you too.
Now a scotch drinker is a complicated one. The men that I know who drink scotch are very pensive, neurotic, moody and like dark colors in their outfits. They usually have high-paying jobs, which allow them to take a swig of some pricey single malt without a care. The blended scotch guys are more of the man’s man. Hardworking, ripe and complex who dreams of making it to the Forbes 500 as much as he thinks of sex  he just wants to get hammered Cary Grant style. Scotch drinkers are usually old-world gentlemen  or at least they want to be. I mean a dapper silver fox who sips his scotch (not on the rocks) is very sexy. A 19 year-old who drinks it from the bottle is annoying. Again appropriateness rules in the scotch game.
Vodka drinkers are somewhat a more sophisticated version of the beer man. It is also a college drink. Usually watered down with some Hi-C, eventually it evolves into a sort of iceberg in a highball glass. Neither controversial nor common, a vodka drinker’s refinement elevates along with his knowledge of what makes good vodka. A grainy vodka drinker you know, the shit that should be mixed with really sweet juice or soda, is somewhat a person who just wants to get smashed. There is nothing wrong with that, but it’s not particularly fetching especially if one is trying to be the ladies man.
However, the more appreciation one has for the different types of vodka, the more respectable this particular vodka-drinking male is. There are Pearl, Belvedere and the other painstakingly distilled spirits that evoke a sensation rather than just a taste. Sipped, chilled with no accompaniments or garnishes except for some Frank Sinatra, this is the drink preferred by the man whom you would want to marry but unfortunately he’ll never marry you. Unless you’re hotter than him.
Cocktails drinkers are very dandy men. They may or not be gay, but they certainly love the lush life. They are the types who go to Beauty Bar and buy stuff for themselves and not their mothers. They know who Hedi Slimane is, they watch Art Films (and I mean the real ones not the straight to video B movies which pretend to call themselves art films), they are usually well-traveled, well-heeled, and they have a wardrobe that makes me wish I were a man instead. In more elegant joints in town a straight man with a curvaceous woman looped around his arm cradling a neon colored drink in a graceful piece of stemware would hardly raise an eyebrow. In more casual joints it might be a problem. It’s really hard to talk about T&A and Assunta de Rossi while sipping a cosmo. He’s a man who enjoys the finer things that life has to offer. You see, a cocktail is a carefully shaken concoction that can be delicious, or if done incorrectly, can be a disaster. A cocktail drinker is a connoisseur, a person who knows what’s good and what’s bad.
Whatever the case is, a cocktail man is never afraid to comment that your shoes and handbag just don’t go and he’ll probably know where you can go to buy a smart pair of boots that no one else has yet. If you are going out with such a guy, the only thing you’ll be fighting about is that your outfits are clashing and that you won’t look good together or maybe who finished the Kiehl’s Silk groom. Definitely not the man’s man, nor the ladies man, he’s the gal’s guy.
Martini drinkers are a hybrid of the scotch and cocktail drinkers. They hold that sexy old world appeal. It’s almost like when you’re in their presence they look like stills from grainy black and white films. Or perhaps James Bonds in disguise. But again the allure of the martini drinker only comes when he knows how he wants his martini done. A martini man is as unique as his choice of blend extra dry, stirred, shaken, which olive to use, vodka, gin, or dirty he’s a man who knows what he wants and knows how to get it.
They are always stylishly dressed even if it is only a combo of Helmut Lang jeans and a simple J. Lindeberg top. They are whores to aesthetic detail.
They like beautiful things, from stylish cars to well-cut trousers, and dream of wearing a bespoken suit with John Lobb shoes if the appropriate occasion does arise. They do not like these to show off, but rather they are just authorities of the good life. Though the martini is pretty much a cocktail, in essence it has a very different personality from its Technicolor cousin. A martini is a tad snobbier and more reserved. However, like the cocktail drinkers they are so into specifics. A blue blood martini drinker needs a chilled glass, a mixture shaken just with enough motions so that the ice does not dilute the drink. He is of course as we can see vain, urbane, a man of worldly tastes and has known to have made women cry.
A wine man is very much like a vodka man but just more overt in his level of ignorance or brilliance. There is the uh, red wine guy who’ll take red vinegar and chug it down and say what a treat! Or the vino rapist who will chug down a good glass and bang the glass on the table as if it were a tequila shot. Then there’s the wine expert who dangerously dances along the lines of being impressive and pretentious depending on how he dispenses his knowledge. It‚s easy to spot the Beavis from the true sommelier. The first kind just wants to impress a chick. You see wine is drunk not to get sloshed but to appreciate. So he may be a poser or a hopeless romantic with no clue about the provenance or good years of a worthy bottle. A slammer, which is described as the second one, just likes a good hit. He should just go for tequila and vie for the worm. The third is tricky, he can be a man of good breeding or a bore. Wine men are hard but worth the effort.
Champagne men are funny, as are champagne women. Unless you’re a sommelier who venerates the exquisite qualities of good bubbly, champagne is usually consumed for the idea and vibe it evokes. Whether on a fishing boat, a forest, camping site, wedding, cocktail party, a flute of champagne just makes everything seem opulent. It is a celebratory drink after all. So we drink and love the patrician aspect of it. Just like caviar, it would not hold the same elite gratification from it, if it were not reflective of the Robin Leach life. So a champagne guy is out to impress most of the time. He loves good things and is usually generous but also playful.
Tequilas, Goldshlaggers and their other one-shot relatives don’t really qualify in this list because they are usually guest starrers but not mainstays. Nobody I know calls his regular drink a Flaming Ferrari. So with all the useless study of men and what they drink it all boils down to one truth. After five or six of any of these babies, whether he is an ESPN jock or a James Bond wannabe, at the end of the day he’s still a man  and you know what I mean by that.
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