McFarland Ben - The thinking drinkers guide to alcohol: a cocktail of amusing anecdotes and opinion on the art of imbibing

T HINKING D RINKER S
GUIDE TO
ALCOHOL

A C OCKTAIL of
A MUSING A NECDOTES
and O PINION on the
A RT of I MBIBING

BEN McFARLAND and TOM SANDHAM

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First published in 2014 by Jacqui Small LLP, an imprint of Aurum Press as Thinking Drinkers

Text 2014 Ben McFarland and Tom Sandham
Design and layout copyright Jacqui Small 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

ISBN 978-1-4549-1549-2

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Dedication

To Thinking Drinkers Everywhere

Alcohol. One minute a soul mate, the next a psychopath, it pulls at the loose threads of life with one hand yet weaves joy through it with the other. A fickle fellow, it flips from faithful friend to fearsome foe in the space of a few small sips, the pin loosening from the social grenade with every pour.

On occasions when it is consumed in excess, it shoves a stick in the spokes of the central nervous system, decelerates brain activity, makes a mockery of your motor function and makes numerous essential items such as keys, money and mobile phones miraculously disappear.

After an initial euphoria, alcohol increases anxiety, slurs speech, aggravates any anger you may have, exaggerates irritation and it can also cause memory loss. It can also cause memory loss.

Mistreat it and it will mess you up, dropping you to your knees with nonchalant indifference. Consistent and constant abuse leads to all manner of horrible things: liver disease, diabetes, cancer and other ailments that no-one wants to have to deal with.

But compared with water, booze is a mere drop in the bucket of disease and death. Water has been spreading soluble sickness all over the world for centuries. Cholera, dysentery, salmonella, typhoid, Legionnaires disease and, lest we forget, the Bubonic Plague, are just some of the lurgies that have happily lived in that most lethal of liquids. Dont say you havent been warned.

Alcohol, meanwhile, has been the antidote to all of this. From the herbal wines of Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, to modern-day alcoholic hand gels (please dont drink alcoholic hand gel, even if youre really ill), the water of life has been giving the grim reaper the runaround for centuries.

Its also shaped the world as we know it. Not content with sowing the seeds of early civilization, drink kept explorers alive during the Age of Discovery and as any of historys most prestigious leaders will tell you, from Alexander the Great to Winston Churchill, theres no better weapon in war than alcohol (not including bombs, enormous guns and suchlike).

Alcohol has been instrumental in shaping the worlds religious landscape. Europe, for a start, could perhaps have been an Islamic continent were it not for drink. A distinct lack of booze impaired Islams advances into Europe during the 10th century when Vladimir of Kiev, the Russian ruler, was in the market for a religion for his hitherto Pagan empire.

Kicking the tires of the various religions, Vlad was intrigued by Islam but simply couldnt stomach its strict no-booze policy. So he threw his considerable military might behind Christianity instead, Islam was ushered out of Europe and the West sidestepped a future of sobriety.

Drinking, exclaimed Vladimir, is the joy of all Russiawe cannot exist without that pleasure. As the beleaguered dancing bear who he mercilessly poked with a stick will no doubt testify, Vlad had a point.

Afforded the requisite level of reverence and respect, alcohol peddles more pleasure than it does pain. Think of all the great things that have happened in your life and, chances are, a drink has played at least a cameo role.

Alcohol unleashes your entire array of emotionsfrom virtuous indignation to unabashed joy to sobbing snot-bubble sadnessoften within the same evening. Its not drink that disguises us and veils our inner selves, it is sobriety; drink peels away the layers of self-consciousness and kindly drops them in your top-pocket where you can find them in the morning.

With each gentle bend of the elbow, drink rounds off the jagged edges of unease and liberally applies a unique afterglow to everything around you. Drink catalyzes camaraderie, it makes music sound better, companions more compelling, conversations more absorbing and it even steadies our cue hand too.

As one glass blends into another, it sharpens our subconscious, it coaxes out courage, confidence and creativity; it awakes our imagination and lights a fire under the rocking chair of unadventurous ideas.

As Friedrich Nietzsche, a first class clever clogs, said: For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication.

From Plato and Homer to Andr the Giant, Ernest Hemingway, Vincent van Gogh and, of course, Norm Peterson from Cheers, abstinence would have deprived us some of historys greatest minds.

Yet, still, the shadowy forces of temperance swirl around us, demonizing drink as a dark, malevolent force of questionable morality. Such crass condemnation actively encourages bad behavior. How else are we to behave after ingesting the devil drink?

As numerous anthropological studies have proven, different cultures and societies react entirely differently to drink. What shapes drunken behavior is not the alcohol itself but rather societys expectations. It is in those societies where drink is deemed as diabolical, where consumption is controlled and drunkenness is almost expected, that bad behaviour tends to thrive.

The more we know about alcohol, the more we appreciate its potential for both pain and pleasure and the more society deems it daft to be antisocial while intoxicated, the less likely we are to abuse it. Its not the drink that dictates our behavior, its what we think.

What we mustnt forget either, is that the first people to make alcohol on a commercial scale were monks and, as everyone knows, theres nothing nicer or more sensible than a monk. Its their job. And their boss is God and so if its alright with him then, well, it should be alright with everyone else.

So go on, have a drink. In fact, why not have a couple? If you drink discerningly, then theres absolutely nothing to be ashamed about. Show drink its due respect and, rest assured, drink will respect you back.

Drink Less. Drink Better.

Hope you enjoy the book.