The genteel art of drinking alcohol ....

Tweet

The first edict when drinking alcohol is: make sure you have always had one more drink than whoever you are with. This guarantees that they are charming, witty, considerate and attractive, and that you are drunk. If they have had one more drink than you, then they are boring, repetitive and smell like a tramp – why are you talking to them? As we all know, white wine should be chilled, red wine should be room temperature and port should be plentiful. There are a number of ways in which to drink alcohol: Red wine should be drunk with red meat or a particularly robust vegetarian meal White wine should be drunk with white meat, fish, salads or light vegetarian meals Port should be drunk with stilton or with someone who will appreciate it and not try to add ice Brandy should be drunk when someone else is paying for it Whisky should be drunk when you are drunk Gin should be drunk as much as you can get away with Vodka should be drunk loudly or when you're trying to get someone else drunk Pimm's should be drunk only in places where there is the off-chance you might drown Lager should be drunk while ruining someone else's evening Alcopops should be drunk and not heard When drinking alcohol, one should be considerate to fellow drinkers. If you order a double brandy and coke when everyone else is buying mineral water, your friends may start to feel as though you are exploiting the 'round' system. Addressing the bar staff as "wench" is also a poor choice. Demonstrating a golf shot by knocking all the drinks on your table to the ground and then blaming someone else is not the best way to make new acquaintances. All it takes is a little consideration, a little moderation and someone there to tell you when you're being an idiot. Of course, drinking alcohol to excess, just as drinking coffee to excess, can lead to embarrassing situations. Some of these effects are the same: stuttering, drooling, slurring, uncontrollable shaking, injudicious offers of marriage, the list is nearly endless. The key point is that if you can't avoid getting blind drunk or wired on caffeine, make sure that you are with someone else who is more of an idiot. That way, you'll still seem fine to everyone else and they won't mention the stain on your trousers which has been there since you tried to drink a double-shot cappuccino on the tube this morning.