Hip Flasks.

Collecting hip flasks has become a little more focused. But not a reason to go overboard and go mad in collecting this interest. At home, there are about a dozen. Collected over a fair number of years. So no! Not addicted. An addictive personality isn’t part of Summers’ make up fortunately. Luckily, it is easy to stop anything getting out of hand at anytime.

Back to the hip flasks I have. A few are vintage. Most new/second hand modern style. The type of flasks given away as a boxed Christmas gift or birthday bundle. A miniature bottle of spirits and the enticement of its future metal housing to buy it, all wrapped up in a cardboard box with a see through plastic window.

Having picked up three flasks a couple of days ago for very small cash outlay from charity shops, (a Jack Daniel’s, a Jameson and a Glenfiddich), I saw that the Jameson was a very nice addition for the few other vintage and nice aesthetic looking ones back home in Wales. The Glenfiddich was small enough for my old vintage waistcoats’ pockets too. I have a couple of collectible Jack Daniel’s, a Temerity Jones Hipster, The Captain Fawcett limited edition, a heavy glass early make, covered with leather and with a metal drinking cup attached underside/bottom of glass. I do choose one for accompanying a long local jaunt when the weather is nippy.

Like vintage fountain pens with choice decisions of which inks to use. What liquids to put into the hip flasks. Single malts and bourbons in the main are my favourite choices.

The thing is, for the whole of 2022 I had a dry year. 0% alcohol bottled beer was nice and refreshing when in social drinking company. Didn’t taste too bad at all. Spirits at 0% however! Nope. On to 2023. That year was extremely minimalistic re: intake. This year? I’ve adhered to another dry January and was intending to carry on for the year. Mainly to lose weight. No bread, butter or sugar either. And chair yoga looms after this holiday break.

However, I feel at times that nurse training and research has led to studying for and against. So a deep enquiry of both benefits and risks associated with such whiskey considerations is worth a delve. Because I have no addictive personality, do I have to abstain completely?

I have read in the past that there are benefits to very moderate intake of whiskey. A need to revisit the literature studies definitely looms.

Tapping on the below tiny images makes them, like Edelweiss, bloom and grow.

When my wife and myself were living above and working in a Wholefood shop back in the early 1970s we had a customer visit who was in his mid 90’s. He always entered the shop with a hop, a skip and a jump. He stated every single visit, with a smile on his face because he knew we expected it;

“A tumbler full of warm water and a tumbler full of cold water every single morning. A wee dram of whisky every night’.

The lines following were usually varied, but usually had a description or sentence or two to his well being current status.

Thought:

On Vintage Ownership.

A hip flask requires a spirit to provide well being.

A fountain pen requires ink to produce words expressing the inner thoughts.

A VeeDub Bus requires petrol to travel and see the world.

A camera needs film and developing fluids to capture the treasured moments.

A human needs water to survive and continue to use all four.