Alcohol- Sunday Stills

http://sundaystills.wordpress.com/2014/08/24/sunday-stills-the-next-challenge-alcohol/

I ride the Argus Cycle race around Table Mountain every year, (missed this year’s race for the first time in 20 years!) And over the time I have developed some traditions of my own.

After finishing the 110 km race, I usually go to the Victoria and Albert Waterfront of CApe Town, where I usually park my car. On my way from the finish line to the parking lot, I stop at Ferrymans Tavern- one of the oldest buildings in Cape Town. A pub with some old history behind it…

I see I actually don’t have many photos of Ferrymans… I am usually so very tired after that Cycle race…

But one of my favorite beers in the world resides here. Ferryman’s belongs to Mitchells Breweries. And one of their brews is the Bosun’s Bitter. It only contains about 4% alcohol, but it is really a tasty, grainy beer…

There is another story behind the Bosun’s Bitter. I drink it as a toast to my dad.

We did not always have a great relationship. After I finished university, I had to go to the army as all white young men in South Africa had to do. When I finished Army, I had a temporary post at a congregation in the Free State. In that time my uncle was murdered in Durban. This uncle was a real mentor for me since a very young age. We met as a family in Durban, and went to my uncle’s funeral. That evening, my father and I went to a pub, just us two. We sat down in a pub, and had a beer or two together. Mitchell’s Bosun’s Bitter. And we talked like real men to each other, and we had a very constructive father and son experience. The next day we all went home- he and my mother to Newcastle, me and my 7 month pregnant wife to Kroonstad.

I never saw him alive again. Two weeks later he died of a massive heart attack at the age of 54.

Mitchell’s Bosun’s Bitter is a rare beer to find these days in South Africa. The Keg franchise of pubs kept it for years, but I don’t see it there anymore. In Cape Town, I find it at Ferryman’s and at my other favorite watering hole… the Blue Peter Hotel in Bloubergstrand (where I had my honeymoon 24 years ago…)

This is also a beautiful place to see the sun setting over Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years, and over the Atlantic Ocean.

Each time I drink a Bosun’s Bitter, I think of my dad. Sometimes with great regrets. For now I am 7 years younger than he was when he died. I understand much better these days… and I try to connect with my sons in meaningful ways, that they may have memories of me one day to treasure. Hopefully more than one beer…