★ Alcohol & Alcoholic

I have very poor and unhappy brains for drinking. I could well wish courtesy would invent some other custom of entertainment. William Shakespeare, Othello II iii 30-32, Cassio

Iago: I learned it in England, where indeed they are most potent in potting. Your Dane, your German, and your swag-bellied Hollander – drink, ho! – are nothing to your English.

Cassio: Is your Englishman so exquisite in his drinking?

Iago: Why, he drinks you with facility your Dane dead drunk. He sweats not to overthrow your Almain. He gives your Hollander a vomit ere the next pottle can be filled. ibid. II iii @70

’Tis evermore his prologue to his sleep.

He’ll watch the horolage a double set

If drink rock not his cradle. ibid. II iii 121-123, Iago

O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil. ibid. II iii 275-277, Cassio

O God that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! That we should with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause transform ourselves into beasts! ibid. II iii @283, Cassio

It hath pleased the devil drunkenness to give place to the devil wrath. ibid. II iii 289-290

Every inordinate cup is unblessed, and the ingredient is the devil. ibid. II iii 300-301, Cassio

Good wine is a good familiar creature, if it be well used. ibid. II iii 302-303, Iago

46,139. Oh God. That men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their friends. Othello, Cassio, Globe Theatre production, Sky Arts 2012

Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes and unprovokes: it provokes the desire but it takes away the performance. Therefore much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery: it makes him and it mars him; it sets him on and it takes him off; it persuades him and disheartens him, makes him stand to and not stand to; in conclusion, equivocates him in a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him. William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Macbeth II iii @27, Porter

Let’s have one other gaudy night: call to me

All my sad captains; fill our bowls once more;

Let’s mock the midnight bell. William Shakespeare, Anthony & Cleopatra III xi 182

That’s a brave god, and bears celestial liquor.

I will kneel to him …

I prithee, be my god. William Shakespeare, The Tempest II ii @115, Caliban

I told you, sir, they were red-hot with drinking. (Alcohol & Drink) ibid. IV i 171, Ariel

For the liquor is not earthly. The Tempest 2010 starring Helen Mirren & Felicity Jones & Chris Cooper & Russell Brand & Reeve Carney & Tom Conti & Alan Cumming & Dimon Hounsou & Alfred Molina & Ben Whishaw et al, director Julie Taymor, Caliban

Last night, among his fellow roughs,

He jested quaffed, and swore. Francis Doyle, 1810-88, The Private of the Buffs, 1866

I desire to end my days in a tavern drinking,

May some Christian hold for me the glass when I am shrinking;

That the Cherubim may cry, when they see me sinking,

God be merciful to a soul of this gentlemen’s way of thinking. Author unknown

She tells me with claret she cannot agree,

And she thinks of a hogshead when’er she sees me;

For I smell like a beast, and therefore must I

Resolve to forsake her, or claret deny.

Must I leave my dear bottle, that was always my friend,

And I hope will continue so to my life's end?

Must I leave it for her? ’Tis a very hard task:

Let her go to the devil! – bring the other full flask … Anonymous

We’re all dry with drinking on’t,

The piper kissed the fiddler’s wife,

And I can’t sleep for thinking on’t. Anonymous, We’re All Dry

I have fed purely upon ale; I have eat my ale,

I drank my ale, and I always sleetp upon ale. George Farquhar, The Beaux’ Stratagem

Flow Welsted, flow! like thine inspirer, Beer,

Tho’ stale, not ripe; tho’ thin, yet never clear;

So sweetly marish, and so smoothly dull;

Heady, not strong; o’erflowing tho’ not full. Alexander Pope, The Dunciad, 1742

I know when to stop. If I’m lying on my back choking on my own vomit then I know I should have one, maybe two more drinks, then I’d better stick to shorts. Steve Coogan, in character

Drink today, and drown all sorrow; you shall perhaps not do’t tomorrow. John Fletcher, Rollo

Clowns and vulgar men drink beer or ale, but gentlemen carouse only in wine. Fynes Moryson

The Government’s Chief Adviser on Drug Policy [David Nutt] has been sacked after insisting alcohol and cigarettes are more dangerous than cannabis and ecstasy. BBC News

Unquestionably, the reason it is so harmful is because so many people use it, and so many people are dependent on it and so many people get into trouble with it. Professor David Nutt, re report rating alcohol very harmful drug

I have no doubt that if alcohol was discovered today it would be controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act. Professor David Nutt, Imperial College London

A three-year-old from the West Midlands has become the country’s youngest alcoholic. Frankie Boyle, The Sun disputed article March 2011

The king sits in Dunfermline town

Drinking the blude-red wine. Sir Patrick Spens, ballad

He considered it foolish to suppose that alcohol was a source of inspiration. He knew that it constrained his imagination confining it to layers of drunken perception. When he was drunk, he was oblivious to detail or perspective. Yet he welcomed, and actively sought, this state. It relieved him from fear and responsibility. But what did he fear? Peter Ackroyd, The Lambs of London p15

It was my Uncle George who discovered that alcohol was a food well in advance of medical thought. P G Wodehouse

Don’t ask a man to drink and drive. UK road safety slogan from 1964

See what the boys in the back room will have

And tell them I’m having the same. Frank Loesser, song 1939

I hate it – hate it hate it hate it – when men say that women shouldn’t drink. Fuck off. If women didn’t get pissed, most of you wouldn’t get a shag. Jenny Eclair, on stage

Dear Mother, dear Mother, the Church is cold,

But the Ale-house is healthy & pleasant & warm;

Besides I can tell where I am used well,

Such usage in heaven will never do well.

But if at the Church they would give us some Ale,

And a pleasant fire our souls to regale,

We’d sing and we’d pray all the live-long day,

Nor ever once wish from the Church to stray.

Then the Parson might preach, & drink, & sing,

And we’d be as happy as birds in the spring;

And modest dame Lurch, who is always at Church,

Would not have bandy children, nor fasting, nor birds.

And God, like a father rejoicing to see

His children as pleasant and happy as he,

Would have no more quarrel with the Devil or the Barrel,

But kiss him, & give him both drink and apparel. William Blake, The Little Vagabond

[reviews photograph of Jack Dupree] And on the shelf behind him is his requisites for the day: he’s got some bottles of lager, three different types of whisky, and the bottle of milk is not for his health, it’s mixed with whisky because that lines your stomach. That’s one thing I learned from a lot of the old Blues singers was mixing whisky and milk. Val Wilmer, interview

The alcohol consumption rate is highest in Ireland where 12.3 litres (21.6 pints) of pure alcohol per person is consumed according to surveys done in 2000. Guinness World Records 2005 (50th edition)

An alcoholic is a person for whom one drink is too many, and a hundred is not enough. Alcoholics Anonymous booklet, ‘Who Me?’

I drink to stay warm and to kill selected memories. Conor Oberst

Strong brother in God and last companion, Wine. Hilaire Belloc, Heroic Poem upon Wine, 1926