MAN ABOUT TOWN
TEXT
JACKSON BIKO
ART
MOVIN WERE
THE RIGHT
GLASS
Jackson Biko, is a lover of whisky and
people watching. He likes to walk the
shadows of the city at dusk, picking
conversations of a people spurred by the
night and by their drink.
I
’m lying under this pagoda at a
ritzy place called Kilindi Zanzibar,
Northern Zanzibar. Its white
domed Pavilion guest rooms are
set in 35 acres of greenery thrust
upon a private beach that curves
at a fisherman’s beach bobbing with
dhows and barechested fishermen
mending their nets. The resort was
designed for Benny Andersson from
the 1970’s group- ABBA. You know
ABBA, right? Dancing Queen?
You are the dancing queen, young
and sweet, only seventeen/ see that
girl, watch that scene, diggin’ the
Dancing queen? Surely, you know
that song.
Anyway, my sun is suddenly
temporarily blocked by my butler
(yes, everybody has their own butler
at Kilindi) who asks me if I would like
a cocktail. Time: 2:56pm. Well, why
not? Only one problem- I have one
single rule on cocktails; I don’t drink
them. If you brought me a cocktail
with a slice of fruit sticking at the
edge of the glass, I will eat the fruit
and only smell the cocktail. If you
want to drink alcohol, drink alcohol.
If you want to drink a fruit juice laced
with alcohol, drink a fruit juice then
drink alcohol. No but seriously, I’m
not a huge fan of cocktails. I like to
feel the sharp taste of alcohol assail
the back of my throat, almost like it’s
got a small grudge with me.
But who am I to disappoint my
butler? So I tell him I will have
any whisky based cocktail that he
recommends. No syrup. No fruits.
No honey. Anything with whisky I
will drink. He unblocks my sun and
disappears up the sandy patch that
leads further inside the property,
a good 5-minute walk. I lie back
and watch out at sea, a sparkling
blue that seems almost deceptively
surreal. The beaches in Zanzibar are
unlike ours; the water seems warmer,
the sand finer, the birds thinner,
the sky bluer, heck, even the palm
trees sashay in the wind, as if to a
tune that only they can fathom. It’s
gorgeous!
Fifteen minutes into my reverie,
my butler sits down this drink before
me. It’s brown in colour and served in
a wide martini glass. He tells me it’s
whisky and some angostura bitters
and ice cubes. I’m hardly thrilled
but I’m big on effort (mine). So I
say thanks and he leaves my sun and
goes to chat with the watersport
guy (OK, his effort).
If there ever is any evidence for
me that the kind of glass you use
to drink your whisky determines
a lot then this was it. I have never
held a martini glass in my hand
before because I just don’t find
that it’s the kind of glass that takes
me seriously. It’s too flippant. Too
loose-shouldered. I’m a lowball-glass
kind of guy. I can do a brandy snifter.
I will even attempt a champagne
flute (when toasting at weddings and
stuff) but I think the martini glass
wasn’t built for men like me.
Consequently I didn’t enjoy
the drink, but that’s only because
of my rubbish stereotypes and
conceptions and hangups. I think if
he had brought me the same drink
in a different glass, like a highballglass, maybe I would have thought
differently of it.
So I ordered a straight whisky
which came in a proper whisky glass;
decorative, heavy in the hand, sturdy.
A glass that takes you - and your
drink - seriously.
49.