It was girls’ night, and I was the first to arrive at our favorite cozy, dimly-lit bar (Beecher’s, of course)…which gave me more time to study the cocktail list. As Kate settled in, I mentioned that I had debated between two cocktails before ordering a French 75.

“Of course you did, Jean,” Kate said, laughing. “Ten out of ten times, you pick the gin cocktail.”

She was right, and a little light of recognition switched on in my brain. While I knew that I enjoyed a good gin cocktail, I hadn’t realized how often I chose them over something else. Which, as Kate pointed out, is nearly every time.

It was a moment of clarity that still makes me smile, because a dear friend helped me recognize something very consistent (although admittedly minor) about myself. I think that is friendship at its best.

Good friends help us see ourselves more clearly and can nudge us (sometimes gently, sometimes with a firm but loving push) towards knowing ourselves better. They can highlight our strengths and skills, the things we take for granted because they come so naturally to us. And they can pinpoint our favorite drink order, sometimes before we’ve even laid claim to it ourselves.

For the record, Kate never orders the gin cocktail.

While she’s almost an official New Yorker, now that she has spent the past eight years working for a large investment bank in New York City, Jean Blosser still cherishes her Midwestern roots, growing up in Columbus, Ohio. She is an alumnus of Boston College and enjoys her whiskey neat.

Imagery from CAKE&WHISKEY Issue 2 by Sarah Jane Sanders