More bottled water than beer? We are doomed...doomed I say. As a man who can safely say he has downed beer to bottled water at a basically 100 to 1 ratio this cri de coure struck me. When I first entered the legal profession we all had a drink at lunch. Litigators especially thought nothing of ordering beer with lunch and many of the old school were of the two or three scotches or martini per luch types. All gone, along with much of the collegiality of the Bar. Alcoholism is a terrible thing, but t-totalling is the death of society. Beer is, since the end of the whiskey sodden 19th century the American alcohol. Nonetheless,Ms. Mcwilliams will forgive me if I quote Belloc, not once but thrice on the general aridity of the bottled water world first with ale then with wine:
Now the faith is old and the Devil bold
Exceedingly bold indeed.
And 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!
Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There’s always laughter and good red wine.
At least I’ve always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!
and,
Drinking Song, On the Excellence of Burgundy Wine
My jolly fat host with your face all a-grin,
Come, open the door to us, let us come in.
A score of stout fellows who think it no sin
If they toast till they're hoarse, and drink till they spin,
Hoofed it amain
Rain or no rain,
To crack your old jokes, and your bottle to drain.
Such a warmth in the belly that nectar begets
As soon as his guts with its humour he wets,
The miser his gold, and the student his debts,
And the beggar his rags and his hunger forgets.
For there's never a wine
Like this tipple of thine
From the great hill of Nuits to the River of Rhine.
Outside you may hear the great gusts as they go
By Foy, by Duerne, and the hills of Lerraulx,
But the rain he may rain, and the wind he may blow,
If the Devil's above there's good liquor below.
So it abound,
Pass it around,
Burgundy's Burgundy all the year round.
6 comments:
Of Hobbits & Ale:
Chorus:
Hey, ho, to the bottle I go,
To heal my heart and drown my woe!
Rain may fall and wind may blow,
But there still beeeeee many miles to go!
Sweet is the sound of the pouring rain,
And stream that falls from hill to plain!
Better than rain or rippling brook,
Is a mug of beer inside this Took!
Strange and dark is the world outside,
But in the pub we've naught to hide!
With lots of ale, and barley wine,
This evenin' is surpassin' fine!
Harvest's in and cold without,
An' hobbits strong are hobbits stout!
Naught to fear, and naught to think,
For hobbits nowwww have ale to drink!
(chorus)
The Shire lays right down to sleep,
In slumber long and slumber deep!
Hushed be hobbit lass and lad,
With faces plump and faces glad!
A land of peace and a hobbit hole
And in a pouch a pipeweed roll!
Never falter, never fear,
For the Shire will always be here!
What's next, kegs of water?!
And have you ever heard of a water drinking song?
Most distressing news, I agree. (For the record, I prefer both my beer and my water from taps.)
Yet again I have wasted my time clicking on the link. The statistic McWilliams cites (but fails to link to) lacks context and assumes a zero-sum game (more bottled water necessarily means less beer). When my tap water contains measurable amounts of lead, as it did in DC, yeah, I think I'll reach for a bottle or at least filter, but then I'm a rank individualistic elitist.
Anyway, from what I understand a fair amount of boutique bottled water is from taps elsewhere so the joke's on us.
Finally, invocations of "the Republic" are reliable indicators of the rest of the piece being summed up as "Hey, you kids, get off my lawn!"
Gosh, I'm cranky today. I could use a drink. Where'd my Deer Park go?
Rather than beer and bottled water being emblematic of social versus not, how about more people drinking bottled water because they don't like their drinking water? And I love drinking alcohol alone. It's often more fun (everyone laughs at my jokes). So I'm buying her theory.
But MLR, you just gave a very cogent refutation of her theory. Am I missing something or should I be drinking more?
Stay thirsty, my friends.
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