Having an older cousin you look up to is what I imagine having an older sibling of the same gender would be like, but without the expectations and competition. If you’ve got a good relationship it can be spectacular. They can teach you things you wouldn’t otherwise know for a few years, be an open ear to ask questions to, and perhaps most importantly, keep you in the know.
My older cousin Danny has always been cool to me. He’s also just always been cool. He’s 7 years older than I am, and when we were growing up he was always someone I tried to emulate. From playing D1 soccer to living in a house off the sunset strip in his early 20’s, he could do no wrong in my eyes. The coolest part about Danny, though, was that I was never – at least to my knowledge – a burden on him. He’s always given me the beautiful gift of showing me a path I admire, and not making me feel weird for wanting to follow it. For Christmas in 2010, Danny sent me three CDs. They were the debut albums of Mumford and Sons, Phoenix, and the xx. At that point no one had heard of any of them, and 15 year old Andrew was smart enough to recognize that this was some seriously good music. I’m not even sure if I thought it was that good at the time, but Danny had sent it to me and said his friends were listening, so it must be cool.
When I moved to LA for college, Danny was a welcome slice of family living in West Hollywood. From time to time, I’d get off campus and hang out with him for dinner or a drink. This is where I first encountered Mezcal. At this point, the prospect of ordering a cocktail was foreign to me. I’d just started college and joined a fraternity, so my drinking consisted of slugging beers and mixed drinks for enjoyment an hour in advance, not in the present moment. Danny and I would meet for mezcal negronis and exchange updates on how life was going. As I tried my best to act like the drinks weren’t getting to me, those cocktail meetups served as milestones signifying the shift in our relationship from cousins in different stages of life to friends.
After those drinks with Danny, I couldn’t wait until the next occasion my school friends and I ordered drinks. Asking for a mezcal drink at 19 when everyone around you is ordering Bud Lights and Moscow Mules turns some heads: pretentious? Probably. Worth it? Absolutely.
Apart from my contemporaries on the row at USC, my early knowledge of mezcal was also a way for me to impress my dad. Embarrassingly, one of my most memorable moments of pride was when my dad was in LA for work one night and we met up for dinner. As we ordered drinks, I ordered a mezcal negroni, and with surprise – and here’s the kicker – intrigue in his eyes, he ordered one too. In what I now find to be a sort of cute note, he didn’t say much other than that it was good and asked where I learned about it. Only a few months later did the impression I’d made become clear when he told me that he’d gotten mezcal, Campari, and sweet vermouth for all of his friends for Christmas.
Another thing impressed upon me by Danny was the importance of “set and setting.” In a conversation about psychedelics (surely a future blog topic), he shared this spectacularly simple way of expressing that mindset and environment are really all that matter in any situation. As I’ve gotten older (really seen the years at 25), the cliche adage that food and drink are about the people you share them with has become exceedingly true in my life, due to set and setting. I’m not someone who will order a drink alone at a bar, and what I am drinking is a distant runner-up to how I feel when I am drinking, who I am drinking with, and where I am drinking. I’ll always love mezcal because of the memories I have drinking it with my cousin Danny, and the people I’ve been able to turn on to it in subsequent years. From holiday negronis with my dad and girlfriend, to looking forward to hearing what specific mezcal Danny’s been drinking, I have the happiest memories and regards toward the Mexican spirit.
When I think of mezcal, I don’t think of the beverage. I think of being 18 sitting at Sunset Trocadero wondering if I’d get carded. I think of having dinner with Danny and his friends, discussing topics far beyond my young years, marveling at the openness they were showing me. I think of hanging out with Danny now, at 25 and 32, and how there are some things that I feel like I’m the authority on, and how through years of mezcal, he’s made me feel comfortable with, and deserving of that feeling.
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