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ALCOHOL

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[QUOTES FOLLOW LINKS]

see:

ABSTINENCE

BEER

DRUNKENNESS

FOOD & DRINK

HANGOVER

IRISH TOASTS/BLESSINGS

LIQUOR

PROHIBITION

WHISKY

WINE


We, cold water girls and boys,
Freely renounce the treacherous joys
Of brandy, whisky, rum, and gin;
The serpent's lure to death and sin.
--Song of the cold water societies, temperance groups
composed largely of schoolchildren c.1840 -GBAQ.

If all be true that I do think,
There are five reasons we should drink:
Good wine, a friend, or being dry,
Or lest we should be, by and by...
Or any other reason why!
--Henry Aldrich (1647—1710)
English theologian and philosopher.
_Five Reasons for Drinking_ [1705]

He lay sprawled, too wicked to move, spewed up like a
broken spider crab on the tarry shingle of the morning.
The light did him harm, but not as much as looking at
things did; he resolved, having done it once, never to
move his eyeballs again. A dusty thudding in his head
made the scene before him beat like a pulse. His mouth
had been used as a latrine by some small creature of
the night, and then as its mausoleum. During the night,
too, he'd somehow been on a cross-country run and then
been expertly beaten up by secret police. He felt bad.
--Sir Kingsley Amis (1922—1995)
English novelist, poet, critic, and father of Martin Amis.
_Lucky Jim_ [1954]

A man can hide all things excepting twain —
That he is drunk, and that he is in love.
--Antiphanes (fl. early 4th cent. B.C.)
Greek comic poet.

One reason why I don't drink is because I wish
to know when I am having a good time.
--Lady Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor
(1879—1964)
American-born, first woman to be a member of Parliament in Britian.
"Christian Herald" [June 1960]

Now the faith is old and the Devil bold
Exceedingly bold indeed.
The masses of doubt that are floating about
Would smother a mortal creed.
But we that sit in a sturdy youth
And still can drink strong ale
Let us put it away to infallible truth
That always shall prevail.
And thank the Lord
For the temporal sword
And howling heretics too.
And all good things
Our Christendom brings
But especially barley brew!
With my row-ti-tow
Ti-oodly-ow
Especially barley brew!
--Hilaire Belloc (1870—1953)
British poet, essayist, historian, and novelist.
"Peligan Drinking Song"

Drinking makes such fools of people, and people
are such fools to begin with it's just compounding
the felony.
--Robert Benchley (1889—1945)
American humorist and newspaper columnist.
Quoted in Herbert Victor Prochnow
_The New Speaker's Treasury of Wit and Wisdom_ p. 129 [1958].

The hard part about being a bartender is figuring
out who is drunk and who is just stupid.
--Richard Braunstein

The Americans are a good-natured people,
kindly, helpful to one another, disposed to
take a charitable view even of wrongdoers ...
Even a mob lynching a horse thief in the West
has consideration for the criminal, and will
give him a good drink of whiskey before he
is strung up.
--James Bryce (1838—1922)
British politician, diplomat, and historian;
ambassador to the U.S. [1907—1913].
_The American Commonwealth_ [1888]

One evening in October, when I was one-third sober,
An' taking home a "load" with manly pride,
My poor feet began to stutter, so I lay down in the gutter,
And a pig came up an' lay down by my side.
Then we sang "It's all fair weather when good fellows get together,"
Till a lady passing by was heard to say:
"Can tella man who boozes by the company he chooses",
And the pig got up and slowly walked away.
--Benjamin H Burt (1880—1950)
_And the pig got up and slowly walked away_ [1933 song]

-

Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter,
Sermons and soda water the day after.
--Lord Byron [George Gordon Byron] (1788—1824)
English Romantic poet and satirist.
_Don Juan_ [1819], canto II, st. 178


What's drinking?
A mere pause from thinking!
--Lord Byron [George Gordon Byron] (1788—1824)
English Romantic poet and satirist.
_The Deformed Transformed_ [1824] , act III, sc. i

-

When I sell liquor, they call it bootlegging. When my patrons
serve it on silver trays on Lake Shore Drive, they call it hospitality.
--Al (Alphonse Gabriel) Capone (1899—1947)
American gangster.
Quoted in Kenneth Allsop _The Bootleggers_ [1961]

One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor.
--George Carlin (1937—2008)
American stand-up comedian and author.

Alcohol is like love: the first kiss is magic, the second
is intimate, the third is routine. After that you just take
the girl's clothes off.
--Raymond Chandler (1888—1959)
American writer of detective fiction.
_The Long Goodbye_, ch. 12 [1953]

Red meat and gin.
--Julia Child (1912—2004)
American chef, television personality, and author.
(When asked at age 84 to what she credited her longevity.)

Bessie Braddock: Winston, you're drunk.
Winston Churchill: Bessie, you're ugly. But tomorrow I
shall be sober.
--Attributed* in J.L. Lane (ed.) _Sayings of Churchill_ [1992]
(*This exchange must be considered apocryphal as
there is no record of it from any legitimate source.)

Ennui has made more gamblers than avarice, more
drunkards than thirst, and perhaps as many
suicides as despair.
--C.C. Colton (1780—1832)
English clergyman and writer.
_Lacon: or, Many Things in Few Words;
Addressed to Those Who Think_ [1820]

Some malicious person or persons in the ship took
advantage of his [a crew member] being drunk and
cut all the clothes from off his back; not being satisfied
with this, they some time after went into his cabin and
cut off part of both his ears as he lay asleep in his bed.
--James Cook (1728—1779)
British naval captain, navigator, and explorer.
Quoted in J. C. Beaglehole
_The Life of Captain James Cook_ "New South Wales" [1974]

When the day of election approaches, visit your
constituents far and wide. Treat liberally, and drink
freely, in order to rise in their estimation, though
you fall in your own. True, you may be called a
drunken dog by some of the clean-shirt and silk-
stocking gentry, but the real roughnecks will style
you a jovial fellow. Their votes are certain, and
frequently count double.
--David Crockett (1786—1836)
American folk hero who died at the Alamo.
_Exploits and Adventures in Texas_ [1836] pp.56—59

He seldom went up to town without coming
down 'three sheets in the wind.'
--Richard Henry Dana (1815—1882)
American lawyer and author.
_Two Years Before the Mast_ [1840]

Then trust me, there's nothing like drinking
So pleasant on this side of the grave;
It keeps the unhappy from thinking,
And makes e'en the valiant more brave.
--Charles Dibdin (1745—1814)
British actor and dramatist

Alcohol is nicissary f'r a man so that
now an' thin he can have a good opinion
iv himsilf, ondisturbed be th' facts.
--Finley Peter Dunne (1867—1936)
American journalist and humorist.
_Mr. Dooley on Alcohol_ in "Chicago Tribune" [26 April 1914].

There is this to be said in favor of drinking,
that it takes the drunkard first out of
society, then out of the world.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882)
American philosopher and poet.
Entry written in 1866 _Journals_.

There's no such thing as bad whiskey. Some
whiskeys just happen to be better than others.
But a man shouldn't fool with booze until he's
fifty, and then he's a damn fool if he doesn't.
--William Faulkner (1897—1962)
American novelist.
In James M. Webb and A. Wigfall Green _William Faulkner of Oxford_ [1965].

^

W. C. Fields [William Claude Dukenfield]
(1879—1946), American film actor and comedian.

Fields always kept a thermos of martinis at hand
when he was filming, maintaining that it contained
nothing but pineapple juice. One day someone
tampered with the flask and Field's anguished cry
rang out across the set: 'Somebody put pineapple
juice in my pineapple juice.

&

'Can I fix you a Bromo Selzer sir?' asked a waiter
of Fields, who was groaning in the grip of a fearful
hangover. 'No,' moaned Fields, "I can't stand the
noise.'

--_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_
edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.]


Some weasel took the cork out of my lunch.
--W. C. Fields [William Claude Dukenfield]
(1880—1946) American vaudeville star and film actor.
Lines spoken by Larsen E. Whipsnade (Fields) in the
1939 film, "You Can't Cheat an Honest Man."


I like to keep a bottle of stimulant handy in
case I see a snake — which I also keep handy.
--W. C. Fields [William Claude Dukenfield]
(1880—1946) American vaudeville star and film actor.
Quoted in Corey Ford _The Time of Laughter_ [1967].


Back in my rummy days, I would tremble and shake
for hours upon arising. It was the only exercise
I got.
--W. C. Fields [William Claude Dukenfield]
(1880—1946) American vaudeville star and film actor.


Once, during Prohibition, I was forced to live
for days on nothing but food and water.
--W. C. Fields [William Claude Dukenfield]
(1880—1946) American vaudeville star and film actor.


I was in love with a beautiful blonde once.
She drove me to drink. 'Tis the one thing
I'm indebted to her for.
--W. C. Fields [William Claude Dukenfield]
(1880—1946) American vaudeville star and film actor.
Lines spoken by The Great Man (Fields) in the
1941 film, "Never Give A Sucker An Even Break."
[1941], screenplay by Prescott Chaplin and John T. Neville,
from a story by W. C. Fields.


I've been drunk only once in my life. But
that lasted for twenty-three years.
--W. C. Fields [William Claude Dukenfield]
(1880—1946) American vaudeville star and film actor.
Quoted in _The Quotations of W.C. Fields_ (ed. Martin Lewis) [1976].

^

A medium Vodka dry Martini — with a slice
of lemon peel. Shaken and not stirred.
--Ian Fleming (1908—1964)
English thriller writer.
_Dr No_ [1958]

It is disgusting to notice the increase in the
quantity of coffee. Everybody is using coffee.
If possible this must be prevented. My people
must drink beer.
--Frederick II [Frederick the Great] (1712—1786)
King of Prussia [1740—1786].

Wine hath drowned more Men than the Sea.
--Thomas Fuller (1654—1734)
English writer and physician.

Harris, I am not well; pray get me a
glass of brandy.
--King George IV (1762—1830)
King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland [1820—1830].
(Upon first seeing his future wife, Caroline of Brunswick.)

^

Oliver St John Gogarty (1878—1957)
Irish poet.

Entering a tavern one day, Gogarty caught sight
of a friend wearing a patch over one eye. He
greeted him: 'Drink to me with thine only eye.'

--_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_
edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.]

^

Let schoolmasters puzzle their brain,
With grammar, and nonsense, and learning;
Good liquor, I stoutly maintain,
Gives genius a better discerning.
--Oliver Goldsmith (1728—1774)
Anglo-Irish writer, poet, and dramatist.
_She Stoops to Conquer_ [1773]

Licker talks mighty loud w'en it
git loose fum de jug.
--attributed to Joel Chandler Harris (1848—1908)
American author of the _Uncle Remus_ books.

Be wary of strong drink. It can make you
shoot at tax collectors — and miss.
--Robert Heinlein (1907—1988)
American science-fiction writer.
_Time Enough for Love_ [1973]

I decided to stop drinking with creeps.
I decided to drink only with friends.
I've lost 30 pounds.
--Ernest Hemingway (1889—1961)
American novelist.
Quoted in "American Way" (magazine) [August 1974].

A hair of the dog that bit us.
--John Heywood (1497—1580)
English playwright.
_Proverbs_ [1546]
{Old recipe books advised that an inebriate should drink sparingly
in the morning some of the same kind of liquor which he had drunk
to excess the night before. (Bartlett's).}

No poems can please for long or live that are
written by water-drinkers.
--Horace [Quintus Horatius Flaccus] (65—8 BC)
Roman poet.
_Epistles_ Book I [C. 20 BC], Epistle XIX, Line 2

You can't get away from yourself by
going to a booze-bazaar.
--Elbert Hubbard (1859—1915)
American editor, publisher, and author who
died in the sinking of the "Lusitania."
_The Roycroft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams_ [1923]

-

Upon the first goblet he read this inscription: monkey
wine; upon the second: lion wine; upon the third:
sheep wine; upon the fourth: swine wine.

These four inscriptions expressed the four descending
degrees of drunkenness: the first, that which enlivens;
the second, that which irritates; the third, that which
stupefies; finally the last, that which brutalizes.

--Victor Hugo (1802—1885)
French poet, dramatist, and novelist.
_Les Miserables_"Cosette," bk. 6, ch. 9 [1862]

-

^

jazzed
corked
potted
boiled as an owl
loaded to the muzzle
loaded for bear
tanked
burning with a blue flame
pie-eyed
slopped
lit
oiled
--Prohibition terms for someone who was drunk.
In Peter Jennings and Todd Brewster _The Century_ [1998] p. 123.

^

-

It's nine o'clock on a Saturday,
The regular crowd shuffles in.
There's an old man sitting next to me,
Makin' love to his tonic and gin.
He says, 'Son can you play me a memory,
I'm not really sure how it goes,
But it's sad and it's sweet and I knew it complete,
When I wore a younger man's clothes.'

Sing us a song, you're the piano man,
Sing us a song tonight.
Well, we're all in the mood for a melody,
And you've got us feelin' alright.

Now John at the bar is a friend of mine,
He gets me my drinks for free.
And he's quick with a joke or to light up your smoke,
But there's someplace that he'd rather be.
He says, 'Bill, I believe this is killing me,'
As the smile ran away from his face.
'Well I'm sure that I could be a movie star,
If I could get out of this place.'

Sing us a song, you're the piano man,
Sing us a song tonight.
Well, we're all in the mood for a melody,
And you've got us feelin' alright.

Now Paul is a real estate novelist,
Who never had time for a wife.
And he's talking with Davy who's still in the navy,
And probably will be for life.
And the waitress is practicing politics,
As the businessmen slowly get stoned;
Yes, they're sharing a drink they call loneliness,
But it's better than drinking alone. [. . . ]

--Billy Joel (William Martin Joel) (1949— )
American pianist, singer, and songwriter.
"Piano Man" [1973 song]

-

Wine makes a man better pleased with himself. I do not say that it
makes him more pleasing to others.... This is one of the disadvantages
of wine, it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.
--Samuel Johnson (1709—1784)
English poet, critic, and lexicographer.
[28 April 1778] in James Boswell _The Life of Samuel Johnson_ [1791].

What you need for breakfast, they say in East
Tennessee, is a jug of good corn liquor, a thick
beefsteak, and a hound dog. Then you feed the
beefsteak to the hound dog.
--Charles Kuralt (1934—1997)
American journalist and broadcaster.

A telephone survey says that 51 per cent of college
students drink until they pass out at least once a
month. The other 49 per cent didn't answer the phone.
--Craig Kilborn (1962— )
American comedian and talk show host.

This year in October [1613], the Turks observed
their feasts of Bayram ... a Turk having drunk wine
too freely (the drinking whereof is forbidden
amongst them, although they love it well, and
drink in private) was apprehended, and carried
before the Grand Vizier: who seeing the fact
verified, inflicted this punishment upon him, to
have boiling lead poured into his mouth and ears.
--Richard Knolles (c.1545—1610 )
English historian.
In M.J. Cohan and John Major (eds.)
_History in Quotations_ [2004] p. 265.

-

I woke up Sunday morning
With no way to hold my head that didn't hurt
And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad
So I had one more for desert.

Fumbled thru my closets, thru my clothes
And found my cleanest dirty shirt
And I washed my face and combed my hair
Stumbled down the stairs to greet the day.

--Kris Kristofferson (1936— )
American country music singer and songwriter.
"Sunday Morning Coming Down" (1969 song)

-

[In Key West] there are more than one hundred saloons on an island
one mile wide. If you get drunk and fall down in any direction on Duval
Street, somebody said, you fall into another bar.
--Charles Kuralt (1934—1997)
American journalist and broadcaster.
_Charles Kuralt's America_ [1995] "February, Key West"

Be wary of strong drink. It can make you
shoot at tax collectors and miss.
--Lazarus Long (fictional character in Robert A. Heinlein novels).
"Time Enough for Love" [1973]

Joy, temperance, and repose
Slam the door on the doctor's nose
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807—1882)
American poet.

Wer nicht liebt Weib, Wein und Gesang,
A Der bleibt ein Narr sein Leben lang.
(Who loves not wine, women, and song
Remains a fool his whole life long.)
--Martin Luther (1483—1546)
German Protestant theologian.
Inscribed in the Luther room in Wartburg.

^^

One day John Marshall and his fellow Supreme Court justices,
having heard disturbing rumors of their own excessive drinking,
jointly agreed to abstain on their weekly consultation day —
unless it was raining. The following consultation day, Marshall
(the Chief Justice) instructed Joseph Story to go to the window
and check for signs of inclement weather.

Story soon reported back: "Mr. Chief Justice, I have very carefully
examined this case," he declared, "and I have to give it as my
opinion that there is not the slightest sign of rain."

"Justice Story," Marshall replied, "I think that is the shallowest
and most illogical opinion I have ever heard you deliver. You
forget that our jurisdiction is as broad as the Republic, and by
the laws of nature it must be raining some place in our jurisdiction.
Waiter, bring on the rum!"

http://www.anecdotage.com/

^^

I'd hate to be a teetotaller. Imagine getting up in the
morning knowing that's as good as you're going
to feel all day.
--Dean Martin (1917—1995)
American film actor and singer.
Attributed to Martin and to Jimmy Durante.

McKinley drinks soda water,
Bryan drinks rum,
McKinley is a gentleman,
Bryan is a bum.
--Republican (McKinley) campaign [1900]

Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.
--Herman Melville (1819—1891)
American novelist and poet.
_Moby Dick_, ch. 3 [1851]

-

A man loses his sense of direction after four
drinks; a woman loses hers after four kisses.
--H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (1880—1956)
American journalist and literary critic.


It is not the drinker, but the man who has just
stopped drinking, who thinks the world is
going to the dogs.
--H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (1880—1956)
American journalist and literary critic.

-

Candy
Is dandy
But liquor
Is quicker.
--Ogden Nash (1902—1971)
American writer of humorous poetry.
_Hard Lines_ [1931] "Reflections on Ice-Breaking"

I only drink to make other people seem interesting.
--George Jean Nathan (1882—1958)
American drama critic and editor.

-

Drink and dance and laugh and lie,
Love, the reeling midnight through,
For tomorrow we shall die!
(But, alas, we never do.)
--Dorothy Parker (1893—1967)
American critic and humorist.


I'm really not much of a drinker,
Just 1 or 2 at the most.
With 3 I'm under the table,
With 4 I'm under my host.
--Dorothy Parker (1893—1967)
American critic and humorist.


[Of a cocktail party she had attended:]
One more drink and I'd have been under the host!
--Dorothy Parker (1893—1967)
American critic and humorist.
Quoted in Bennett Cerf _Try and Stop Me_ [1944].

-

[To a driving instructor in Scotland:]
How do you keep the natives off the booze
long enough to get them through the test?
--Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (b. 1921)
Consort of Queen Elizaberh II.

Champagne is the only wine a woman can
drink and still remain beautiful.
--attributed to Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour
(Madame de Pompadour) (1721—1764) Maitresse-en-titre to Louis XV.

Drunkenness is temporary suicide: the happiness
that it brings is merely negative, a momentary
cessation of unhappiness.
--Bertrand Russell (1872—1970)
British philosopher, mathematician, and Nobel laureate.

The church is near but the road is icy; the tavern
is far away but I will walk carefully.
--Russian proverb

When the wine goes in, strange things come out.
--Friedrich von Schiller (1759—1805)
German poet, historian, and dramatist.
_The Piccolomini and the Death of Wallenstein_, act II, sc. xii [1799]

Of all the vices drinking is the most
incompatible with greatness.
--Sir Walter Scott (1771—1832)
Scottish novelist and poet.
Quoted in "Manford's Magazine" Vol XXXIV [1890]

There are two things a Highlander likes naked,
and one of them is malt whisky.
--Scottish saying

Drink, Sir, is a great provoker. . . . Lechery, Sir,
it provokes, and unprovokes: it provokes the
desire, but it takes away the performance.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_Macbeth_, act 2, sc. 3, l. 24 [1606]

At the punch-bowl's brink,
Let the thirsty think
What they say in Japan:
'First the man takes a drink,'
Then the drink takes a drink,
Then the drink takes the man!'
--Edward Rowland Sill (1841—1887)
American poet and essayist.
"An Adage from the Orient", in
_The Poems of Edward Rowland Sill_ [1902].

The sight of a drunkard is a better sermon against
that vice than the best that was ever preached on
that subject.
--Sir John Alexander Sinclair (1897—1977)
British head of Military Intelligence [1953—1956].

There are two things that will be believed
of any man whatsoever, and one of them
is that he has taken to drink.
--Booth Tarkington (1869—1946)
American novelist and dramatist.
_Penrod_ [1914]

-

Alcoholic: Someone you don't like who
drinks as much as you do.
--Dylan Thomas (1914—1953)
Welsh poet.
Quoted in Constantine Fitzgibbon _The Life of Dylan Thomas_ [1965].


I have just had eighteen whiskeys in a row.
I do believe that is a record.
--Dylan Thomas (1914—1953)
Welsh poet.
At a bar in Greenwich Village, NYC. While these
were not technically his last words, he died of
alcoholic poisoning nine days later.

-

-

One martini is all right,
two is too many,
three is not enough.
--James Thurber (1894—1961)
American humorist and cartoonist.


It's a naοve domestic Burgundy without any breeding,
but I think you'll be amused by its presumption.
--James Thurber (1894—1961)
Caption for _New Yorker_ cartoon [27 March 1937].

-

-

Scotch whisky to a Scotsman is as innocent
as milk is to the rest of the human race.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.


Give an Irishman lager for a month, and he's a
dead man. An Irishman is lined with copper,
and the beer corrodes it. But whisky polishes
the copper and is the saving of him.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.

^

Paul Verlaine (1844—1896)
French poet.

Poet and painter F.A. Cazals, a friend of Verlaine,
arranged to meet the poet at a cafι, but was
unavoidably late. When he finally did arrive, he
was a trifle nervous, for Verlaine drunk was
unpredictable. A mutual friend met Cazals at the
door and warned him that Verlaine, hopelessly
drunk, was 'furious with you.' Cazals entered to
find Verlaine surrounded by his acolytes, but a
little less drunk than he had been described.
Cazals took courage: 'I hear that you were
abusing me just a few minutes ago.'

'Who told you that?' cried the furious Verlaine.

'Somebody you don't know,' replied Cazals
prudently.

'Somebody I don't know!' exclaimed Verlaine.
He began to weave his way through the
crowded cafι. 'I'm going outside, and the
first passerby I don't know, I'll—I'll— smash
his jaw!'

--_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_
edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.]

^

I'd rather have a bottle in front
of me than a frontal lobotomy.
--Tom Waits (b. 1949)
American singer and songwriter.
Quoted in "Creem Magazine" [March 1978].

-

Donald W. Goodwin, chairman of the department of psychiatry at the
University of Kansas Medical Center and author of the recent book
"Alcohol and the Writer" points out that while objective data on the
numbers of writers afflicted with alcoholism is hard to come by,
statistics show that, after bartenders, more writers die of cirrhosis of
the liver, a disease closely associated with alcoholism, than people in
other occupations.

Goodwin looked at the seven Americans who have won the Nobel prize
for literature and found that four of them — Sinclair Lewis, Eugene O'Neill,
William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway — were definitely alcoholic, while
a fifth — John Steinbeck — drank to excess.

--Ann Waldron "Writers and Alcohol"
_The Washington Post_ [14 March 1989]

-

They drink with impunity, or anybody
who invites them.
--Artemus Ward [Charles Farrar Browne] (1834—1867)
American humorist and writer.
In the program for his lecture at Dodworth Hall,
NYC, in _The Complete Works of Artemus Ward_ [1898].

Said Aristotle unto Plato,
'Have another sweet potato?'
Said Plato unto Aristotle,
'Thank you, I prefer the bottle.'
--Owen Wister (1860—1938)
American writer of western novels.
"Philosophy 4" [1903]

A man is a fool if he drinks before he reaches the
age of 50, and a fool if he doesn't afterward.
--Frank Lloyd Wright (1867—1959)
American architect.
Quoted in "N.Y. Times" [22 June 1958].

The problem with some people is that
when they aren't drunk, they're sober.
--William Butler Yeats (1865—1939)
Irish poet and dramatist who received the
Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923.
Quoted in Andrew Frothingham _Great Toasts_, p. 197 [2002].

-

My Grandmother is over eighty and still doesn't
need glasses. Drinks right out of the bottle.
--Henny Youngman (1906—1998)
English-born American stand-up comedian.


When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.
--Henny Youngman (1906—1998)
English-born American stand-up comedian.
Quoted in "Rocky Mountain News" [15 July 1994].

-

-

Let's get out of these wet clothes and
into a dry Martini.
--anon.
Line coined in the 1920s by Robert Benchley's press agent
and adoptd by Mae West in "Every Day's a Holiday" [1937 film].

There are several reasons for drinking,
And one has just entered my head;
If a man cannot drink when he's living
How the Hell can he drink when he's dead?
--anon.

----

TRIVIA: In 1829, when Mrs. Lydia Marie Child wrote
_The Frugal Housewife_, New England rum was
considered an excellent shampoo (and brandy
was thought to strengthen the roots.)


The top spirits marketer of the early Republic
was George Washington, whose Mount Vernon
estate sold 11,000 gallons of whisky a year.

-----

abstemious [ab-STEE-mee-uhs], adjective:
1. Sparing in eating and drinking; temperate; abstinent.
2. Sparingly used or consumed; used with temperance or
moderation.
3. Marked by or spent in abstinence.
Synonyms: abstinent, teetotal, temperate.

bibulous [BIB-yuh-luhs], adjective:
1. Of, pertaining to, marked by, or given
to the consumption of alcoholic drink.
2. Readily absorbing fluids or moisture.

bootleg (verb) ['but-leg]
To produce and/or distribute legally prohibited products.
Etymology: originated from the habit of men, when they wore high
boots in centuries past, of smuggling objects across borders by
hiding them in the legs of their boots. In the late 19th century,
however, its meaning shrunk to the smuggling of whisky into
counties and states that were 'dry.'

daiquiri (noun)
An iced cocktail of rum, lime or lemon juice, and sugar.

hobnob (verb) ['hahb-nahb]
To take turns drinking to or buying drinks for each other; to
drink together; to associate with someone of a higher social
class. Someone who hobnobs is a hobnobber and his
behavior may be characterized as hobnobbery.

imbibe (verb) [im-'bIb]
To take in liquid; the transitive form of the verb means
to drink alcoholic beverages, specifically.

libation [ly-BAY-shun], noun:
A beverage, especially an alcoholic beverage.

potable [POE-tuh-buhl], adjective:
Fit to drink; suitable for drinking; drinkable.
noun:
A potable liquid; a beverage, especially an
alcoholic beverage.
Ex.: "If you drink from the spring, which is shaded by a
fig tree, you will supposedly feel younger and more loving.
Unfortunately, you may also feel sick: the government warns
that the water is not potable."
--Gene Burns, "The Stuff of Myths,"
_The Atlantic_ [September 1999]

tipple [TIP-uhl], verb:
To drink intoxicating liquor, esp. habitually or to some excess.
noun:
Intoxicating liquor.

toper [TOH-puhr], noun:
One who drinks frequently or to excess.
Ex.: But there remains a core of bottom-
line voters to whom the promise of tax cuts
is as seductive as gin to a toper.
--David Nyhan, "Tax cuts for all - wheee!"
_Boston Globe_, January 21, 2000

whiskey (noun) ['hwis-kee]
A 'spiritual' potable distilled from rye, corn, or barley.


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