In my parents’ house, alcohol was for goyim. On rare occasions, my mother took a nip of Manischewitz Cream Red Concord — “a sweet but balanced wine with a velvety mouth feel and the flavor of fresh Concord grapes with confectionery notes” — but the next day she always spoke against her modest high. My father, well known for his disdain of fun, once ate two bourbon balls at a party and had to take to bed.

My parents married in 1940. Because they didn’t drink, a closet in our home was dedicated to boxes of their wedding liquor, distilled in the 1930s. When my brother and I came of age in the 1960s, he took it upon himself to drain those bottles, drinking better Scotch than he’d find in the next half century of searching.

My failure to join my brother can be explained in a joke.

“Why don’t Jews drink?”
“Because it dulls the pain.”

My late adolescence was about civil rights, Vietnam, aggressive scholarship, and trying to score with smart girls. I didn’t drink. Except at lunch. Before I was legal. With blue-collar guys, even.

In my 17th summer, I got a job as a copy boy at the New York Times. Not in the prestigious newsroom. In classified advertising. My job was to stamp the correct insertion date as ads came in from the agencies and the room of assistants manning the phones. The deadline was 3 PM. Naturally the pace was slow until about 2:30, when messengers dropped bundle after bundle on my desk. Management understood there was a time crunch and adjusted the Muzak accordingly: at 2:30, we were treated to Al Hirt’s “Java.” The guys in the composing room — union men, and true — knew the drill. And they schooled me: The afternoon rush passes less painfully if you’re in an altered state.

Lunch meant Gough’s. If you are, as Yeats writes, “old and gray and full of sleep/ and nodding by the fire,” you may remember this joint. It was right across the street from the Times, and it was dark, with a long bar in front and checked-clothed tables in the back room. You ordered a burger — I don’t believe they served anything else — and a draft beer. No need to specify the brand, because in 1964, beer culture wasn’t even a dream. You got Schlitz, and you said thank you.

The beer came in a schooner. This wasn’t a small glass, suitable for children. It was a blue-collar wine class, thick, stemmed, holding at least 10 ounces. Like ballpark beer, Schlitz started foamy, frigid and bitter; in ten minutes, it was just bitter. It was, therefore, to be downed quickly.

Blue-collar profanity, shrewd gossip, a powerful connection to the proud history of American labor — from day one, these accompanied the beer, they were as bound to it as hops.

Gough’s is long gone. I drink one beer a year now, usually Corona Light, in smaller quantities and smaller glassware, and never at lunch. But in my head, today’s first sip takes me back to that room on 43rd Street, where a callow boy learned how good men suck it up and get it done.

Applaud wildly.
Bad art.
Bad people.
Only the car is innocent.

THE WEEKEND RECIPE

Roast Tarragon-Cognac Chicken

Yield: 4 servings

1(4-pound) whole chicken

2 teaspoons coarse gray sea salt or 2½ teaspoons kosher salt (such as Diamond Crystal)

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1 bunch fresh tarragon, leaves and tender stems coarsely chopped (about ¾ cup)

2 tablespoons Cognac

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Pat the chicken dry and salt the bird inside and out. Transfer to a plate or baking dish, preferably on a rack, and refrigerate uncovered for at least 1 hour or overnight.

When ready to cook the chicken, heat the oven to 400 degrees.

In a small bowl, combine butter, tarragon, 1 tablespoon Cognac and the pepper. Rub mixture inside the chicken cavity and over and under the chicken skin.

Place chicken on a rimmed sheet pan or in a large, ovenproof skillet. Roast, breast side up, until the skin is golden and crisp, and the juices run clear when you insert a fork in the thickest part of the thigh (165 degrees), about 1 hour.

Turn off the oven — don’t skip this step, or the Cognac may overheat and catch fire — and transfer the pan with the chicken to the stovetop. Pour the remaining 1 tablespoon Cognac over the bird and baste with some of the buttery pan juices. Immediately return the chicken to the turned-off oven and let rest there for 10 minutes before carving and serving.