FORGET DRY JANUARY: Try the Three/Four System™
A moderation system, designed by Dr. Christine Sismondo
By law, all drinks writers are obliged to start the New Year with a column about laying off the sauce.
None of us really want to do this—we just do it for the clicks. What we really want to tell you is that January is a great drinking month, even aside from the many whisky-soaked Burns Suppers clustered around the 25th.
What’s so great about drinking in January? For starters, you have the bars to yourself. If you, like me, aren’t exactly thrilled when all the people who found this place on Yelp turn out in droves, January is when you want to be doing a cocktail crawl. You’ll have the undivided attention of bartenders and publicans, who will appreciate you coming out in the lean period, which lasts until Valentine’s Day, the first big amateur night of the year.
Another thing that’s great about drinking in January is that it’s January. People practically invented whisky and cognac for getting through the winter months, so any attempt to resist brown liquor at this time of year is literally fighting against the way we’ve been hard-wired. That’s just science.
Finally, the whole idea of a Dry January is suspect. In the diet world, they say, “Don’t go on any diet that you can’t maintain for the rest of your life.” Now ask yourself this: Is Dry January sustainable? Case closed.
So, instead of embarking on a foolish dry period, consider adopting my patented, expert-tested doctor-approved* Three/Four System™ for moderation that may or may not last into February. Or, possibly, for life.
The Three/Four System™ is simple. On Week One of the New Year, you only get to have drinks on three days—four days of no booze at all. Any days you like, and not necessarily in a row. Week Two, reverse it and take three days off drinking. Alternate weeks until the end of the month. Consider continuing this in February. Or forever. It’s remarkably sustainable, except during the following events: Birthday Months, Vacations, Christmas Holidays and Summer.
You may ask: Why did I come up with the Three/Four System™? Because, in my opinion, even though the concept of a “detox” is hogwash, cleanses, drying out, elimination diets and all those other GOOPy things do have value—just not in the way they’re usually sold. I think it’s really important to shake things up every once in a while and see which of your habits are insidious and which of your rituals are actually still enjoyable.
Take my pre-dinner fino sherry thing, for example. It got so Al had to go to the Tio Pepe store a couple of times a week. And, at that point, am I really savouring the joys of aperitivo hour? Or just catching a buzz while I’m cooking dinner? The Three/Four System™ is the perfect method to sort that stuff out, even convincing me to give up sherry for January. Entirely. Even on my days on.
You might also ask: How did I come up with this cunning plan? Some of the inspiration for the Three/Four System™ came from an essay by legendary Esquire fiction editor L. Rust Hills called “How To Cut Down on Drinking and Smoking Quite So Much.” I can’t link to it online (I have it in a real book made of paper), so I’m going to quote a passage instead:
“I had one hell of a system once for cutting down on drinking so much. I was sharing a big summer house with a lot of city people, and I came to realize I’d been getting bombed every night. I was there all the time, the others would come up just weekends or on their vacations. Anyhow, I devised this incredibly clever system: the idea was, I’d plan ahead just exactly what I would do drinking-wise for each and every day of a four-day cycle. On what became known as a First Day, I wouldn’t drink at all—nothing, not a single drink…”
On a “Second Day,” Hills allowed himself a drink before and after dinner. Moderate drinking was allowed on the “Third Day” and, on the final “Fourth Day,” he could do anything he wanted.
After that, the hilarity ensues. I’m not going to spoil it, but the trouble starts up when he starts trading off days to accommodate special occasions and unexpected benders, which I’ll admit is a built-in hazard in the Three/Four System™. I could solve this with proprietary points cards for The System or a Three/Four App and liver tracker wristband, but we’re all grown-ups, right?
Anyhow, there are few takeaways here. First, Dry January isn’t sustainable for drinking people or bartenders, so we don’t approve. Second, we should all read that L. Rust Hills essay. People just don’t write like that anymore. If you want to buy it, I ran across it in an anthology called Drinking, Smoking and Screwing. Good little read.
Third, if you want a break from pre-dinner sherry, follow my lead and have a Lucano and Fever-Tree tonic instead. Or any amaro with any tonic. We’re calling it: A&T is the drink of the decade, a 10-year span that I’m sincerely hoping will come to be known as the Snoring Twenties. I’ve had enough of interesting times!
*By doctor-approved, we mean a Doctor of Philosophy gave it her stamp of approval, not an actual Medical Doctor.
Do we have to tell you which one Rust Hills is?