Thursday, July 12, 2012

The Midwest vs The South


The Midwest and the South can draw a lot of comparisons. Country music. Big trucks. Lots of people drinking macro brews. Regional accents that are often lampooned in film. But it's the subtle differences that matter. For example, on my first trip to the South I played a game called "cornhole" (it involves a bean bag and boards, it's not sick) and I drank moonshine. These are two things that don't exist in the Midwest. Cornhole's not there because it's inherently lame so it never got legs, but moonshine doesn't exist in the Midwest because the pipes of your illegal outdoor still would freeze and then instead of a bunch of blind patrons you'd have a huge explosion when you tried to cook in the spring. 

Regional differences, I find, are best illustrated through local alcohol. Wisconsin has breweries started by German immigrants who got their start selling off famous art pieces in the late 1940s. Scotland has their isles and single malts. Russia has potatoes and loads of vodka. Ireland has Guinness, for the dark days of winter and summer. And the South sticks with moonshine and their Duke Boy heritage of running it across country lines.

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