Consuming a drink sometimes associated with ideas of celebration and honour, sometimes just having the blues. No matter what the occasion is every time we raise our glasses in exchange for a wish from the Twelve Olympians or Mother Earth or Flying Spaghetti Monster with our little prayer summarised in the words 'long life' or 'to your health' this organic compound of the hydroxyl functional group and saturated carbon atom turns into a symbolic expression of desire for good fortune and happiness.
There are a couple of apocryphal stories explaining why we clink glasses from concerns about poisoning to driving off evil spirits. My favourite story on the origins of clinking perfectly reflects the pleasure humans get from the sacred liquid. Colour of wine whether white or red or somewhere in between, cloudy white raki gets while adding water, sparkling of champagne in the light, gold-to-caramel hue of whiskey are gratifying to one's eyes. The smell while swirling it in one's glass satisfies olfaction. The release of aroma of fruit, flowers, spices or wood on one's tongue encodes new taste memories in one's brain. Smoothness of the glass, temperature of the drink, feeling of the smooth or grainy, watery or dry liquid in one's mouth are pleasing to somatosensation. Since the whole experience is meant to satisfy all five senses, clinking of glasses is for ears to hear it. Ironic that alcohol significantly alters sensory perception yet the complexity and richness of these simple sensory experiences we get from drinking are engraved in our brains accurately or not make the whole ritual more pleasurable.
