I am invited for another wine-tasting evening. I have not yet decided whether to accept the invitation. I always feel a little embarrassed at these places, or a bit of a fake, sitting in my 'Only Vimal' and sniffing, tasting and spitting the finest French grape when I cannot tell the difference between a Grover and a Golconda.

For a person who has been drinking all his life, both heavy and indiscriminately, I am singularly uninformed about liquor. And I am talking of all liquor, not just wine, which I started consuming only recently because people have started serving it.

I have to admit that I cannot tell a premium scotch from a regular, or a single malt from blended. To me Chivas Regal and Black & White are one and the same whisky, except that one is more expensive than the other. At least, I think so, because I have never bought either, always been gifted or served.

The only scotch I used to buy in my youth was Red Label, because it was the cheapest and most easily available. Also, if you went, say to the Harbour Bar, and asked for a scotch without specifying the brand, they would serve you Red Label. That was the practice. Occasionally, when a friend served Black Label, I tried to appreciate the difference, but could not because I did not find any difference.

About the only difference I can tell is between Indian whisky and scotch. This is easy. They are like diesel and unleaded petrol. You drink Indian whisky, even the most expensive label, and it races down the throat and into the arteries like a fire engine. On the tongue, it is rough and coarse, in the stomach, it sits uneasily. The next morning, there is a hangover, and the mouth tastes like, as the man said, the bottom of a parrot cage.

If you drink scotch, none of these things happen, and you get up the next morning like the freshest daffodil in an English field of daffodils. Unless you drink too much scotch the night before, then you get up with a hangover.

There was a time when I used to drink a lot of gin, for reasons I have not worked out, and for a brief period it was vodka. But here also I was not familiar with brands, any brand would do, so long as it imparted a kick by the third peg.

I know more about rum. For many years, Rosa 12-year-old was my favourite, I could tell it by smell and taste. They used to have a cork as a bottle stopper, and it was always difficult to unscrew it. It would break, the sediments dropping into the bottle. Typical Indian packing. But I come back to the main question. Do I go to the wine tasting or not? I think, I will. I don't have to taste the wine, I can just drink it.