Beverages

This past weekend in Providence, I ate in the basement of Apsara, surrounded by friends and a modest selection of beverages. I don't particularly enjoy consumption per se, but I love having a wide variety of beverages--preferably at least four of five of them--arrayed at my fingertips. BYOB restaurants like Apsara are the perfect venues to satisfy this urge, as I can set up my hoard of beverages, in quasi-feudal style, wherever I please, and in ridiculous quantities. In an ideal world, I would prefer to have before me not four or five but rather dozens of types of beverages, particularly the following:

• Tap water, with ice, in a plastic cup, preferably poured from a pitcher (for ease of refill).
• Hot green tea, poured from a pot, in a small porcelain cup.
• Coke (not Pepsi), with ice and a slice of lime or lemon, in a plastic cup.
• Iced coffee, with ice and milk, in a pint glass, with a straw.
• Orange juice, no pulp, with ice, in a large glass.
• Inexpensive, and preferably regional, lager beer, such as Yuengling or Narragansett, from a pint can.
• Imported beer, variety depending on mood and season, from a pint glass.
• Red wine, in the $15-$30/bottle range, from a wine glass.
• Hot coffee, nearly black with a drop of whole milk, in a mug.
• Syrupy, cognac-based liqueur, from the bottle.
• Inexpensive bottled water, chilled, from the bottle.
• Orange Vitamin Water, from the bottle.