One of life’s great pleasures has got to be trying the drink of choice of another part of the world, whether it’s the British Virgin Islands’ Painkiller cocktail (whose name, if you have more than one on a scorching hot Caribbean day, amounts to grossly false advertising) or the Maß, the German Oktoberfest beer that’s so big you’ll be applauded for finishing it without having to empty your bladder halfway through. For the latest edition of The Layover, Zack Cahill (and his liver) revel in global drinking culture – and their many experiences of it.
Many years ago in Texas, I had a total sense of humour collapse. It was in San Antonio, at the height of spring break, and there was afternoon drinking with friends. We found an “Irish” bar. These bars are obviously a con. If you want to set one up anywhere in the world you contact Diageo, the owners of Guinness, and they send you a kit – all those vintage ad posters and wooden toucans and memorabilia. A gigantic drinks corporation sends it to you whole cloth. It’s canned Paddywhackery. Craic by committee.
But you know what you’re getting and that’s the appeal. And yet, this one was a bit off. There were as many Union flags on the wall as Irish tricolours. Which I can get past; there’s no need to get political. Presumably, Americans just file us all under “alcoholics from damp European islands”. But then I looked at the menu and saw a drink called Black and Tans.
The Black and Tans was the nickname of the Royal Irish Constabulary Force, a military unit sent into Ireland by Churchill in 1919 to quell the Irish uprising. Naming a drink after them in an Irish bar is like a Cambodian supermarket selling Pol Pot noodles. Never mind, I thought, brush it off, different country and all that, before scanning further down the menu to see something called Irish Car Bomb. I stood up and grandly demanded we leave.
American conversation is dotted with phrases based on Irish stereotypes. Something that angers you can be said to “get your Irish up”. An “Irish goodbye” is where you don’t say goodbye at all, you just disappear into the night. And yes, it’s accurate, but what’s your point?
Irish drinking culture is world-renowned. But is it well deserved? Ireland does have relatively high consumption rates but lags behind the real heavy hitters in Eastern Europe. According to research from the WHO, the average Irish adult drinks “11-12 litres of pure alcohol per year” (though presumably, they mix it with something).
Lithuania and Moldova surpass us by a long shot. And as an Irish person who has lived in the UK for twenty years, I’ve got news for you: the Brits are some binge-drinking, unhealthy-relationship-with-alcohol-having sons of bitches. Maybe they don’t burst into spontaneous song as much as us, but on pure beverage consumption, there’s not much in the race.
In my experience, Australians have a similar drinking culture to the Irish, but then the non-indigenous Aussies are basically Irish people who stole a loaf of bread in 1850 and were punished by being sent to the other end of the world, so we shouldn’t be surprised.
I was in Cairns about 20 years ago on “ladies’ night” where women drink for free. Like the thrifty twenty-somethings we were, my friend and I dressed up in full drag to see if we could culturally appropriate some drinks. Fair play to the Australian barmen. They didn’t even blink and just shrugged and poured us our freebies like the fair dinkum, deal’s-a-bloody-deal type of blokes they were.
The Japanese love of booze is an interesting one. They’ve got that driving work ethic, and impeccable manners, but at the bar after work, all bets are off. Smashing down the saki and telling your coworker he’s a stupid, inefficient bastard. The next day you’re side by side at your desk as if nothing happened. So chaotic! I love it. The massive weirdness bubbling under the socially conservative surface of Japanese culture is such a draw for me. The fact that you can be shushed on the subway in the country that invented tentacle porn says it all.
I like the French approach too. Those Parisians, perpetually aggrieved, go on strike when the wind changes. The treatment of wine as both a basic human right and something to be foisted on children as early as possible. And yet they seem to handle it better than us. It’s quality over quantity, you see. Every time I visit some vineyard in Provence and we do the tasting thing and they give it all that “you’ll be getting some fruity notes and a hint of petrol”, I swish it around and think to myself “Ah yes, when I’m at home I drink swill”.
American drinking culture has one thing going for it and that’s the phenomenon of free pouring. If you order a vodka in New York they simply pour you a decent-sized glug by eyeball. Order the same in London and the barman virtually gets out a test tube and pipette. The Weights and Measures Order of 1988 is to blame for this; a dry piece of legislation drafted, I presume, by Lord Buzzkill and the Bringdown Police.
Despite their reputation as mead-swilling Vikings, Iceland actually prohibited beer between 1915 and 1989. March 1st is now “beer day”, in celebration of the ban’s lifting. Presumably, it’s also the day when having scrimped and saved all year, people can actually afford a pint there. I went in 2017 and was brought to the brink of tears by a hotel bar bill. My pain was only slightly leavened by the appearance of the northern lights, dancing ephemerally across the frozen sky as I called my broker to sell the Tesla stock.
And the rumours are true, the Gen Zedders really are drinking less. According to the World Health Organisation, binge drinking in the 15-19 cohort dropped from 44% in 2000 to 28% in 2016. That’s globally. The kids just aren’t getting wasted like they used to. Some cite the relative expense of alcohol while others see the trend as a result of a new focus on mental health among the young.
Surely social media is a factor. I am a forty-one-year-old Irish person, which means there are four kinds of pictures of me in existence: a baby picture, a communion picture, a confirmation picture, and ten thousand pictures of me with a drink in my hand. From the early days of digital photography, capturing me with demon red flashbulb eyes and a bottle of blue WKD, right up to today. But my generation made their worst mistakes before the panopticon of social media. When we vomited off a balcony or shat in a bush we did it in private, like gentlemen.
I can’t blame the kids for watching their behaviour when everyone’s a potential paparazzo. Only so many photos of Justin Trudeau in blackface can emerge before we realise this whole camera phone thing’s a rum business.
But one thing brings drinking cultures across the world together. Wherever you’re from, we all agree that anything goes at an airport. You can have a pint at 7 am in Heathrow, Helsinki-Vantaa or LAX and no one will think less of you. The modern airport is an inclusive orgy of alcoholism. Wander through JFK you’ll pass the Tigín Irish Pub, Soy and Sake Asian Eats and Buffalo Wild Wings, not to mention the champagne-swilling elites in the Business lounges. Everyone, man and boy, prince and pauper is getting wasted. It’s enough to bring a tear to your eye. But then I’ve had three pints while typing this. And that’s my flight being called. ‘Til next time.
Illustration by Martin Perry, photography via Unsplash
