There are cocktails you drink because they look good. There are cocktails you drink because somebody tells you they're good. And then there are cocktails that become part of your history.
For me, that's the Rusty Nail.
Scotch and Drambuie. Two ingredients, some ice, and absolutely no interest in putting on a fucking show.
This is where my cocktail adventures started.
My grandfather, Len, taught me to drink the good stuff. More importantly, he taught me why.
Quality over quantity.
Save your money. Invest it. Think about the future. Don't spend five dollars five times on something mediocre when you could spend twenty-five dollars once on something worth having.
He also introduced me to good Scotch.
I took a bottle to my first high school party.
I suspect his financial advice was meant to be applied more responsibly.
The Rusty Nail was one of the first cocktails I knew. Scotch brings the backbone, Drambuie brings honey, herbs and sweetness, and together they make something warm, simple and unapologetically old school.
That simplicity feels appropriate when I think about Grandpa.
My earliest memories of him aren't particularly grand.
They're little bags of M&Ms.
He kept them in his jacket pockets and would hand them to us during music festivals to keep us quiet. We thought Grandpa was being generous. Looking back, he was running a remarkably effective chocolate-based crowd-control operation.
Then there was Fowler Lake.
A little tin boat. Fishing lines trailing behind us. Waiting until we reached trolling speed.
"Commence fishing."
That was Grandpa's official declaration that the important work could begin.
He had songs for cleaning the fish, too.
"F, I say F, I, F-I-S-H-G-U-T-Z, FISHGUTZ."
Objectively terrible songwriting.
Somehow, I still remember every word.
In 2007, Grandpa and Grandma bought a lakefront lot at Ministikwan Lake. As a family, we built a cabin there, and it became the centre of our summers.
Grandpa always wanted to see that lake one more time.
He never got the chance.
He was a farmer, an avid curler, a longtime ice maker at the Lloydminster Communiplex and a coach to local teams. After losing his left leg below the knee in a PTO accident, he wasn't particularly interested in letting that stop him from curling.
So he customized a prosthetic that allowed his ankle to rotate properly for the sport.
That prosthetic now sits in my living room holding Scotch bottles.
I think that's probably the most appropriate second career it could have had.
He was also a ham radio operator. His personal callsign was VE5WI, and for years he competed under the Sask Alta Radio Club callsign VE5RI, with contests hosted out of his own home.
He was known for his memory work through the Lloydminster Concert Series and within the Masonic lodge. He had an extraordinary ability to remember things, and he used that ability in service of the communities he cared about.
He supported the arts, Concerned Citizens for Senior Care, STEM Saskatchewan and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada.
That last one meant something particularly personal.
Grandpa had already survived leukemia twice.
He still chose to support people fighting it.
The Masonic lodge was another important part of his life. There are things about that brotherhood I won't discuss. Not because there isn't anything to say, but because some things are meant to remain within it.
What I can say is that the lodge mattered to him.
Brotherhood mattered to him.
And he gave a great deal of himself to both.
Then there was the humour.
Grandpa and I both loved Douglas Adams. We shared the absurdity, the wit and the complete willingness to find something hilarious in the middle of something otherwise serious.
Our family eventually adopted a phrase from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
It started as a joke.
It became something more.
I eventually had it tattooed on my arm in Morse code.
Which is also a fantastic way to fuck with strangers.
Every once in a while, someone notices it and asks what it says. I tell them it's Braille.
The number of people who immediately reach over and start feeling my arm for the bumps genuinely delights me.
And yes, I let them.
Grandpa would have appreciated the commitment to the bit.
It's also fitting that the phrase is in Morse code. The man who shared the joke with me spent countless hours communicating with the world through ham radio.
One of the things I inherited after Grandpa passed away was a small vintage suitcase.
It holds three bottles, glasses and the tools needed to make a proper drink. He carried it to Masonic events and other gatherings, and inside you'd usually find Glenfiddich.
Sometimes two bottles.
And Drambuie.
Always Drambuie.
That suitcase is one of my favourite things I own.
Not because it's valuable.
Because it was his.
It travelled with him.
Now it sits with me.
And then there was Grandma.
Grandpa and Grandma were married for 60 years.
Sixty years.
She wasn't simply his wife.
She was his absolute best friend.
The person he trusted most. The person whose opinion mattered most. The person he wanted beside him.
He valued her above everything.
They built a life together through farming, family, accidents, illnesses, curling, lake summers, community work and all the ordinary days that actually make up a life.
They bought that lot at Ministikwan together.
They built that cabin together.
They raised their family together.
They made it through the good years and the really fucking difficult ones.
Sixty years is a long time to choose the same person.
For Grandpa, Grandma was his person.
Always.
And Grandpa loved his family just as fiercely.
Not in some grand, dramatic way.
It was in the showing up.
In the remembering.
In the little traditions.
Like ketchup.
Grandpa put ketchup on damn near everything.
Somewhere along the way, that became a family tradition. Whenever we take a birthday picture, there is supposed to be a bottle of ketchup somewhere in the frame.
It doesn't matter where.
On the table. Behind someone's shoulder. Half-hidden in the background.
Somewhere, somehow, ketchup.
It's ridiculous.
It's also one of my favourite family traditions.
Because that's what he left us. Not just memories of the important moments, but little pieces of himself that continue to show up when nobody is consciously thinking about him.
Six months after my wedding, his leukemia returned for the third and final time.
This time it was terminal.
He was given enough blood transfusions to get his affairs in order, and our family was given literature explaining what to expect during the end-of-life phase.
There is something uniquely brutal about being handed instructions for watching someone you love die.
It takes something impossible and turns it into a checklist.
Here is what will happen.
Here is what you might see.
Here is what comes next.
Except there isn't supposed to be a next when you're talking about someone who has always been there.
Grandpa had survived leukemia twice.
He had lost a leg and built a way to keep curling.
He had built a home where radio contests could reach across the world.
He had built a cabin with his family.
He had spent over sixty years beside his best friend.
He had built a life.
This time, there was nothing left to fix.
When I got married, Grandpa was my best man.
Regardless of how that marriage turned out, having him standing beside me remains one of the greatest honours of my life.
He wasn't just my grandfather.
He was my best friend.
Ol Gramps.
The O.G.
Grandpa passed away at 8:27 a.m. on February 13, 2023.
After he passed, our family gathered together.
Around 9 a.m., we poured Rusty Nails.
The earliest I've ever had one.
Not because it was time for a drink.
Because sometimes someone you love dies and you find yourself sitting around a room with the people who loved them too, and nobody really knows what the fuck to say.
So you sit together.
You remember.
You raise a glass.
And eventually, you go home carrying a little more of that person with you than you did when you arrived.
That's what Grandpa left behind.
Not an inventory of accomplishments, but a way of looking at the world.
He taught me to appreciate quality. To plan for the future without forgetting to enjoy the present. To show up for the people I love. To keep learning, keep building, keep laughing, and never take myself so seriously that I forget to enjoy the absurdity of being alive.
And, perhaps most importantly, he taught me that the things that matter most are rarely the things you recognize as important while they're happening.
They're the ordinary moments.
The time spent together. The stories that get told so many times they become family folklore. The traditions that start as something stupid and eventually become something nobody can imagine losing.
That's probably why Dining Unhinged sounds the way it does.
The humour. The sarcasm. The profanity. The willingness to appreciate something without pretending it is perfect.
Grandpa taught me to drink the good stuff, but he also taught me that enjoying something doesn't require an excuse.
Like a good Scotch, he had depth. Not everything revealed itself immediately. You had to spend time with him.
He had warmth, but he wasn't soft. He had a backbone forged by farming, loss, illness and a lifetime of getting back up when life gave him every reason not to. He had complexity, but never for the sake of complexity.
The older I get, the more I appreciate what he taught me about life, love, family, humour, and knowing when to enjoy the good stuff.
And for a man who taught me so much, there is only one way I could say goodbye.
So long and thanks for all the fish.