What I need is a drink. Key Largo 1948 starring Humphrey Bogart & Edward G Robinson & Lauren Bacall & Lionel Barrymore & Claire Trevor & Thomas Gomez & Harry Lewis & John Rodney & Marc Lawrence et al, director John Huston
They say alcohol never cured anybody of anything but when your legs have been cut off at the knee believe me it helps. The Captive City 1952 starring John Forsythe & Victor Sutherland & Joan Camden & Harold J Kennedy & Marjorie Crossland & Ray Teal & Martin Milner & Ian Wolfe et al, director Robert Wise
Truly the nectar of the gods. Too bad we can only rent it. Blown Away 1994 starring Jeff Bridges & Tommy Lee Jones & Suzy Amis & Lloyd Bridges & Forest Whitaker & John Finn & Stephi Lineburg & Caitlin Clarke, director Stephen Hopkins, Bridges senior re alcohol
Two bottles of rye. You know what brand, Mr Brobie, the cheapest. The Lost Weekend 1945 starring Ray Milland & Jane Wyman & Phillip Terry & Howard Da Silva & Doris Dowling & Frank Faylen & Mary Young & Anita Sharp-Bolster & Lilian Fontaine et al, director Billy Wilder, Don
That’s the nice young man who drinks. ibid. lady in street
Let me have my vicious circle. ibid. Don to Nat the barman
It shrinks my liver, doesn’t it? It pickles my kidneys, yes? But what does it do to my mind? ibid.
He’s a sick person. ibid. Helen to brother
You better eat something sometime. This is the morning. ibid. Nat the barman
Love is the hardest thing in the world to write about. ibid. Don to Nat
I’m not a drinker; I’m a drunk. ibid. Don to Helen
Most men live lives of quiet desperation. ibid. Don to Helen
One’s too many, and a hundred’s not enough. ibid. Nat
This is Hangover Plaza. ibid. nurse
Little tiny turkeys in straw hats, midget monkeys coming through the keyholes. ibid.
You’ve forgotten what it feels like to be well. ibid. her to him
Sometimes you know those little bottles contain demons that have a way of popping out of you. Rebecca 1940 starring Laurence Olivier & Joan Fontaine & Judith Anderson & George Sanders & Nigel Bruce & Florence Bates & Reginald Denny & Gladys Cooper & C Aubrey Smith et al, director Alfred Hitchcock, maxim
Son, you know you’ve a got a real liquor problem? Cat on a Hot Tin Roof 1958 starring Paul Newman & Elizabeth Taylor & Burl Ives & Judith Anderson & Jack Carson & Madeleine Sherwood & Larry Gates & Vaughn Taylor, director Richard Brooks, Big Daddy to Brick
Yes, sir. I am an alcoholic. So if you’ll just excuse me. ibid. Brick to Big Daddy
When I’m drunk I can stand myself. ibid.
One medium dry Vodka Martini: mixed like you said, sir; not stirred. Dr No 1962 starring Sean Connery & Ursula Andress & Jack Lord & Joseph Wiseman & Bernard Lee & Anthony Dawson & John Kitzmiller & Zena Marshall & Eunice Gayson & Louis Maxwell & Peter Burtonn et al, director Terence Young, room service
[The Guide] says that the best drink in existence is the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. It says that the effect of a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick. Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Pub: Ah yes. A meeting place where people attempt to achieve advanced states of mental incompetence by the repeated consumption of fermented vegetable drinks. Red Dwarf s3e5: Timeslides, Kryten to others inside photograph, BBC 1989
Scott: When are y’ gonna get off that milk diet, lad?
Chekov: This is vodka!
Scott: Where I come from, that’s soda pop. Now, this is a drink for a man.
Chekov: Scotch?
Scott: Aye.
Chekov: It was invented by a little old lady from Leningrad! Star Trek s2e15: The Trouble with Tribbles
Half a gallon of scotch. Star Trek s3e6: Specter of the Gun, Scott
I require large amounts of whisky. Star Trek: The Next Generation s5e26: Time’s Arrow, old codger to Data
Let’s see: two Bajoran synth ales, a glass of Damsien Wine and a Trixian Bubble Juice for the little lady. [receives drink in face] I’m still charging her for that drink. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine s1e14: The Storyteller, Quark
Don’t drink it: it’s twice as strong as whisky. Star Trek: Voyager s4e19: The Killing Game II, Janeway to Chakotay
Worf: Romulan ale should be illegal.
Guinan: It is. Star Trek X: Nemesis 2002 starring Patrick Stewart & Jonathan Frakes & Brent Spiner & LeVar Burton & Michael Dorn & Gates McFadden & Marina Sirtis & Tom Hardy & Kate Mulgrew & John Berg et al, director Stuart Baird
Tobruk 1942: You’ve had just about enough, sir. Ice Cold in Alex 1957 starring John Mills & Sylvia Syms & Anthony Quayle & Harry Andrews & Diane Clare & Richard Leech & Liam Redmond & Peter Arne et al, director J Lee Thompson, army bloke to Mills
The next drink I have’s gonna be a lager – ice cold; there’s a little bar in Alex with a marble top counter and high stools. They serve the best beer in the whole of the Middle East. When we get through with this, I’ll buy you one. ibid.
No one agent so much obstructs this army as the degrading vice of drunkenness. Total abstinence would be worth 50,000 men to the armies of the United States. General George McClellan
For many a total ban is the only solution: on January 16th 1919 the 18th amendment to the Constitution is ratified. Prohibition makes the manufacture and sale of alcohol illegal. America: The Story of the US s1e8: Boom, History 2010
We’d be letting ourselves down if we didn’t talk about English drunkenness ... key to the national character. Martin Amis’s England, BBC 2014
It’s drowning their sorrows; it’s not celebratory. ibid.
It’s a source of quiet pride. ibid.
I gestured at my litre of fizzy red wine. ‘Want a drop of this?’ I asked him.
‘No thanks. I try not to drink at lunchtime.’
‘So do I. But I never quite make it.’
‘I feel like shit all day if I drink at lunchtime.’
‘Me too. But I feel like shit all lunchtime if I don’t.’
‘Yes, well it all comes down to choices, doesn’t it?’ he said. ‘It’s the same in the evenings. Do you want to feel good at night or do you want to feel good in the morning? It’s the same with life. Do you want to feel good young or do you want to feel good old? One or the other, not both.’
‘Isn’t it a tragedy?’ Martin Amis, Money
The Roundheads were confronted by a pleasure-loving people, and they were never happier than when they were getting drunk. Roundhead or Cavalier: Which One Are You? BBC 2012
But one area of life was to prove their toughest challenge yet: the private behaviour of their fellow Britons. Now sex and alcohol were in the campaigner’s sites. Ian Hislop’s Age of the Do-Gooders III: Sinful Sex and Demon Drink, BBC 2010
Britons liked to drink. A lot. ibid.
There’s more people selling beer in Preston than any other item. ibid.
In the Temperance Hall which used to be here [Joseph] Livesey got up and argued that the Society should campaign for the giving up of all alcohol. Just six friends rallied to his cause ... It marked the birth of teetotalism and the temperance revolution. ibid.
He [Livesey] applied his wit to writing temperance propaganda ... What Livesey started others took up enthusiastically. By the 1840s the teetotal campaign was developing an independent London base with a new set of supporters. One was the illustrator and comic artist George Cruikshank ... He signed the pledge. ibid.
A rift opened up between the pragmatic Dickens and the increasingly fundamentalist Cruikshank. ibid.