It's probably going to give me diabetes and rot my teeth, but...
I love Irn Bru.
So do the Russians, it seems.
It has long been the signature drink in my lifestyle to the point where no2 son calls it 'Daddy's drink'. The peformance projects I did for my Creative Arts degree prominently featured empty Irn Bru cans. My fridge is chock full of the 250ml 'four for a pound' bottles that you can get from Poundland.
I first came across Irn Bru at the off licence on the corner of Goulden St a couple of blocks away from where we used to live on Seedley Park Road (they used to do draft beer there, too. I remember Lee Michaels' dad always used to send us there with a demi-john that we'd fill up with mild). As the youngest of three siblings, when we bought of bottle of pop to share (or 'mineral' as we called it (or 'mingral' as my sister called it) I had no say in what was bought. Consequently it was usually a bottle of Barr's Dandelion and Burdock, Tizer, Lime and Lemonade or occasionally American Cream Soda. Irn Bru wasn't even to be comtemplated. Oh the happy day when I was old enough to buy my own pop.
It seems odd to think of it now, but the flavour I always associate with that first sip of Irn Bru is 'bubblegum'. It doesn't taste like that now, but sometimes, when you let it flow over the back of your tongue like a wine taster sampling the latest red, you get a little hint of that peculiar taste from long ago. The big litre bottles (I think they were actually a pre-metric 32 fluid ounces) came with a deposit 10 then 12 then 15 pence that meant that if you could return enough of them you would have enough to get a new bottle entirely free. Sometimes this had to be bolstered by taking along some of my dad's Boddington's bottles or one of mum's Mackie's botttles. I can still hear the clank of glass in a bag filled with a back yard full of bottles as I traipsed to the shop. I don't remember my first pint, but I recall the thrill of having enough money to buy myself a can from Greenwood's newsagent at the bottom of the road.
The details that stick in your mind - I'm sure that the original can size was 313ml. At any rate, metric or imperial, I'm stll getting through gallons/litres of the stuff a day. On my last trip to Glasgow (Irn Bru in pubs is one of the many wonderful things about Scotland - along with the Macaroni Cheese Pie) they were giving out free branded Irn Bru glasses with the evening paper. My intention was to drink only Irn Bru from it, so I was livid with Shu Shu when she 'deconsecrated' it by filling it with Vimto. I'm not sure if she understood where I was coming from with that - we seperated not long after. The two events are not linked in any way. Probably.
Here's the obligatory link to the Wikipedia page.
Anyway it's gotten late again and I ought to get to bed. Providing I can go to sleep with all this caffeine whizzing round inside (apparently they manufacture Irn Bru in Canada but with the caffeine taken out. Sorry Canada, that's not the way forward).
More soonliest.
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