I know I shouldn’t be impressed, but I can’t help thinking that’s a great effort for a cohort in which the youngest is now 75 years old

Our relationship with alcohol is also highly related to when we were born. In fact, regular drinking is one of the clearest examples of a cohort effect we’ll see in this book. Figure 5.2 tracks the proportions of cohorts in England who have said they drink alcohol on five or more days a week over the last 20 years. The lines are incredibly flat, with a strict generational hierarchy and extremely consistent gaps between each. Around three in ten of the Pre-War generation drink alcohol five or more days a week; as far as we can tell, they always have and always will. I know I shouldn’t be impressed, but I can’t help thinking that’s a great effort for a cohort in which the youngest is now 75 years old.

B. Duffy, The Generation Divide (2023), loc. 2,049

I have always found a good sherry sufficient for my needs, but I dare say these American beverages are not unpalatable

‘Ah, yes; cocktails. A drink imported, I am told, from America. The custom of drinking cocktails at all hours of the day is on the increase, undoubtedly, amongst certain sections of society. I have always found a good sherry sufficient for my needs, but I dare say these American beverages are not unpalatable.

N. Blake (C. Day-Lewis), Thou shell of death (1936), 5

Trying either to forget who they are or to remember where they live

It was eight in the morning, a time when drinkers are trying either to forget who they are or to remember where they live.

T. Pratchett, Soul Music (1994), 252

Wherever men are found, strong liquors are met with, and are used in festivities

Wine, the most pleasant of all drinks, whether due to Noah who planted the vine, or to Bacchus who expressed the juice of the grape, dates back to the infancy of the world. Beer, which is attributed to Osiris, dates to an age far beyond history. All men, even those we call savages, have been so tormented by the passion for strong drinks, that limited as their capacities were, they were yet able to manufacture them. They made the milk of their domestic animals sour: they extracted the juice of many animals and many fruits in which they suspected the idea of fermentation to exist. Wherever men are found, strong liquors are met with, and are used in festivities, sacrifices, marriages, funeral rites, and on all solemn occasions. 

J. Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste (1825), 80

The Royal Oak is the third most common pub name in Britain

Oak Apple Day was declared a public holiday by parliament, and its official celebration continued until 1859. The date is still celebrated as Founder's Day at the Royal Hospital Chelsea. 

The Royal Oak is the third most common pub name in Britain. Since the Restoration there have been at last eight warships called HMS Royal Oak.

J. Lewis-Stempel, The glorious life of the oak (2018), 27

Fifty-six units a week as the safe upper limit for male alcohol consumption

Back in 1982 both the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the British Medical Journal’s ABC of alcohol were giving fifty-six units a week as the safe upper limit for male alcohol consumption. Yet, five years later, this limit was reduced to twenty-one units a week, without any reasons for the change being given and without there being any substantive new research to back it up.

A. Barr, Drink: a social history (1995), 321

Heavy drinking has always been part of the British character

Heavy drinking has always been part of the British character – and one that has differentiated the inhabitants of these islands from their neighbours on the Continent of Europe. The eighth century missionary and reformer Saint Boniface had been born in Devon but spent most of his life working on the Continent. In his old age he wrote to the Cuthbert, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in which he referred to a report that ‘In your dioceses the vice of drunkenness is too frequent. This is an evil peculiar to pagans and our race. Neither the Franks not the Gauls nor the Lombards nor the Romans nor the Greeks commit it.’

A. Barr, Drink: a social history (1995), 25

Dick Turner had long since coined the word 'teetotal' and the exponents of that ghastly creed were preaching misery throughout the land

Another factor which contributed to the falling demand [for sherry] was the changing moral attitude towards drink. By the 1880s Victorian smugness and philistinism were reaching their peak; the Salvation Army had been beating its drums for years and saving souls from the torments of alcohol; Dick Turner had long since coined the word 'teetotal' and the exponents of that ghastly creed were preaching misery throughout the land; pious faces could be seen every Sunday leaving tin tabernacles to threaten publicans with eternal damnation. There were, of course, a few of the enlightened, but Saintsbury's influence lay still in the future and G.K. Chesterton was far too young to compose the rimes of The Flying Inn. The naughty nineties were hardly in sight, and when they did come they bright young things only thought of champagne.

J. Jeffs, Sherry (6th edition, 2016), 74

During the regicide disgrace of the Protectorate, sherry suffered a short-lived eclipse

During the regicide disgrace of the Protectorate, sherry suffered a short-lived eclipse but this arose more as a result of matters in Spain than from the change of government in England. During the Civil War and afterwards the nobility, who had been the greatest buyers of wine, could no longer buy it on their accustomed scale. Some were exiled and others impoverished. Although the Puritans detested drunkenness and gluttony, they had no objections to drinking in moderation. The awful heresy of teetotalism was not to emerge for another three hundred years. ... But the beginnings of the Commonwealth coincided with the start of years of terrible plague in Jerez which resulted in the disruption of the wine trade for over two decades.

J. Jeffs, Sherry (6th edition, 2016), 24

Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, who discovered Florida, was the son of a Jerez wine grower

All his [Columbus'] efforts, his intrigues with the Church and the monarchy, his triumphs and disappointments, the elaborate preparations for his voyages, the voyages themselves, all were centred on Andalusia. From Andalusia he gathered his forces, and many of the men came from the Sherry towns. He set forth from Sanlúcar de Barrameda on his third journey, to discover the island of Trinidad in 1498, and Sanlúcar was soon established as a major port for the new American trade; it was the port from which Pizzaro set sail twenty-five years later on his way to conquer Peru. Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, who discovered Florida, was the son of a Jerez wine grower.

J. Jeffs, Sherry (6th edition, 2016), 12

Intoxicated: beastly work, but how can I help it?

[The diary of the Marquess of Dalhousie]

Take for example, a few typical entries during the first six months of 1830. 'Dined in Hall at 5. Could get nothing to eat.' Chapel: 'beastly music and singing';  or again, 'skipped chapel; my character for regularity may perhaps carry me through'. Then came the wine parties. 'Intoxicated: beastly work, but how can I help it?' Once more: 'Fourteen of us had supper in my rooms. the most tremendous row was created till 1/2 past one, when we went out to walk, and on my return I found Cunningham sitting eating the leg-bone of a turkey by the fire, with all my glasses in shivers round him. Never will have a party in my rooms again if I can help it.'

K. Feiling, In Christ Church Hall (1960), 163-4 [chapter on Dalhousie] 

It could be a fine thing ... to be gently but firmly drunk

He had discovered, quite be accident, that it could be a fine thing, on a grey, dismal morning - a morning of limp, oyster coloured weather - to be gently but firmly drunk, making a pleasure of melancholy. But it had to be undertaken with a chemist's precision; bad things could happen in the event of a mistake.

W. Tevis, The man who fell to earth (1963), 25

There are only two cocktails

There are only two cocktails. The bar manuals and the women's pages of the daily press, I know, print scores of messes to which they give that honorable and glorious name. They are not cocktails, they are slops. They are fit to be drunk only in the barbarian marches and mostly are drunk there, by the barbarians. .... I have shown that our forefathers were a great people: they invented rye and bourbon. They were also a tough people: nothing so clearly proves it as they survived the fearful mixtures they also invented and then drank.

B. DeVoto, The Hour (1951), 50-51

This is the most famous line in this hard-edged gem of a book. It makes me want to engage with Martinis, and bourbon. 

Asking for a martini today is merely a socially acceptable way of asking for a bottle of gin

You have to work hard to get away from the fact that asking for a martini today is merely a socially acceptable way of asking for a bottle of gin - hold the brown paper bag - and could it come direct from the freezer, rather than its hiding place in the corner of the wardrobe, please? And drinking virtually neat gin is an act that tends to be frowned upon otherwise in most middle-class circles. 

V. Moore, How to drink (2009), 284

We have a very big sharp knife

The Poire William tasted so precisely of the fruit it was made from you could almost feel the sweetness and textured scrape of the coarse pear flesh dragging across your tongue, so that it was a surprise to find only liquid in your mouth. The Goutte de Reine Claude Doree Passerillee (greengage) also yielded an incredible clarity of flavour. 'We take all the stones out of the fruit by hand,' explained the producer when I commented on this. 'All 300,000 of them. We do everything by hand so as to avoid bitter or dirty tastes. The quince are the toughest to deal with because they are very hard, but we have a very big sharp knife.'

V. Moore, How to drink (2009), 200

No, sir, those are the wrong type of glasses

Nonetheless I reserve great respect for sticklers like the head waiter at the Taj Mahal in Mumbai, who refused to let standards slip during the terrorist siege in November 2008. As one guest-hostage who had been holed up in the restaurant while explosions shook the building later reported. 'Come 5 a.m. we were confident the police were going to get us out, so I marched over to the bar and found a bottle of vintage Cristal, opened it and began pouring. Then the head waiter came rushing across and said, "No, no, you can't do that!" And I said, "Well, we're going to!" and he said, "No, sir, those are the wrong type of glasses." ' Quite so.

V. Moore, How to drink (2009), 48

You are expecting the nectar of the gods, and what you get is cough mixture

I have tried meads that taste of urine, and meads that taste of petroleum waste . What I have not tasted are any that are particularly nice. Bad mead is worse than the most mediocre wine, because of the expectations it raises. You are expecting the nectar of the gods, and what you get is cough mixture, if you are lucky.

B. Wilson, The Hive (2004), 159

This has really put me off mead, which instinctively, I feel I would like very much.

Few flashes of lust at parties; perhaps we could not afford to drink enough

There was no infidelity in The Huts, or none that I knew of. We lived so close together, we were poor and too busy. Few flashes of lust at parties; perhaps we could not afford to drink enough.

A. Munro, 'Tell me yes or no', Something I've been meaning to tell you (1974), 108

Why would you drink like a prissy prancing mellifluous child of Dionysus in the vineyards of antiquity

We [the British] drink like this because we can, because it's our birthright, it's our heritage, our history, our myth and legend. Why would you drink like a prissy prancing mellifluous child of Dionysus in the vineyards of antiquity when you could bellow obscene songs in the mead halls of Asgard? We are the chilly, sweaty drunks of the north, of the long nights. We drink in the dark of the flickering shadows, not in the sunny, blue-hued shade of the south. We drink like this because we fucking can.

A.A. Gill, Pour me (2015), 16-17

Like a lot of A.A. Gill's memoir, this doesn't really stand analysis, but it's a great passage.

Waylon said it would help

George Jones was probably the worst. I worked a show with him once and we were standing in the wings waiting to go on. He was acting a little peculiar, so I asked, "You been drinking, George?"

"Naw," he said. "I been working on my drinking problem."

"How's that?"

By way of an answer, he reached in his coat pocket, pulled out a handful of cocaine, and buried his nose in it, snorting. Then, when he'd fixed up that side of his nose, he went after the other.

"How's that working for you?" I asked

"Pretty good," he said. "Waylon said it would help."

C. Louvin, Satan is real: the ballad of the Louvin brothers (2012), 194-5