Admittedly, I’ve had a few moments of lost interest in moving to Florida when I retire while on vacation. This is true if only for the ruder disposition of the native drivers. I thought Michigan was bad. Florida is far worse.

Let’s say you want to merge into a line on the freeway in Michigan. It may take some time for the kindlier person to appear and let you over, but eventually, the time comes, and the person does appear. In Florida, minutes would be days if not for the out-of-towners. The natives will see you waiting, and lest the promising space between each other’s bumpers tempt you, several feet quickly become only a few inches.

The access roads among the strip malls are no exception. Just yesterday, I left my credit card at a restaurant in such a location by mistake. Even though the establishment and its parking lot are not on a thoroughfare, its intersection is equally unnavigable. I was tempted to call the bank and cancel the card rather than drive back to a lot from which it took almost a half hour to emerge the first time.

Another reason to avoid retiring in Florida is that my wife, Jennifer, is a nervous passenger, and with that, I already more than struggle as her chauffeur. Her tolerance for roadway shenanigans is exceptionally low. In Michigan, she closes her eyes and tilts her head downward when things get hairy. She escapes to her happy place—wherever that might be—preferring not to see what’s happening around her. In the same way that cave-dwelling animals eventually lose the ability to see, if we lived in Florida, she’d likely go blind from closing her eyes too much. Of course, if she were to go blind, I’d care for her. And yet, why be the direct cause for it?

But the thing is, the year-round sunshine, palm trees, and pools are incredibly enticing. Michigan does not offer these things. The climate only allows them, at most, three months of the year. Florida, on the other hand, isn’t so stingy. Its tropical embrace allows one to drift around the pool with a scotch in hand most every day of the year. The 11-year-old Caribbean Rum Cask (fourth edition) from Lagavulin’s “Offerman” lineup is a whisky worthy of such day-wasting leisure.

Mild smoke in its nose, the dram’s humid breeze nudges the sipper toward its rum-soaked planks and the distinctive palate they produced. The eventual sip it tempted is not disappointing. The rum’s sugarcane molasses is strict but still generous and kindly. It’s not like Florida traffic. It lets others merge, allowing peppery vanilla and pineapple in its lane.

It isn’t stingy like Michigan, either. In Michigan, summers begin and end in haste, the cold eventually overpowering its landscape. This fourth edition’s finish is a long, salty-aired, and heat-filled season, the kind capable of remaining beyond August all the way through to Christmas.

Apart from what I initially described, I suppose Florida could still be the preferable place to live out my twilight years. So long as the grocery stores continue to deliver, and I have reasonable access to a nearby and decently-stocked liquor store, life with a blind wife and the occasional need to rebuild absolutely everything due to a hurricane seems doable.