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Imbibing Infantilism For a decade we've looked to the far past for alcoholic inspiration. But with a baby millennium, who still wants to drink like a grown-up? By Michael Stabile Many of my generation didn't dare touch liquor until they came of age. I was not among them. I remember--though all other involved parties deny it--drinking melon balls at my Aunt Cindy's house at the tender age of 12. It was 1984 and, with so much else available to adults, liquor was a vice no more potent than apple juice. Or so I thought. "Grown-ups" who had come of age when drinking began legally at 18 were more prone to offer me sips of the diabetic cocktails, which were the rage in mid-'80s New Jersey. My favorite was the Jolly Rancher, a drink which in post-Cold War Orwellian parlance has been "disappeared." Bartenders in San Francisco claim no knowledge of it (not so dissimilar to the way my relatives deny getting a sixth-grader drunk) and it's not to be found in any search engine. But with the second coming of the mullet, it's high time we start drinking like kids again. Here's the secret: Cranberry juice, Peachtree schnapps and Midori. I swear, it tastes just like its namesake sucker. (Not to mention it's the secret reason your older sister got pregnant). [ San Francisco | MetroActive Central | Archives ]