The Globe and Mail (Canada)

May 17, 2003

Tippling tips for modern drunkards

By Beppi Crosariol

Most drinks columns, this one included, dwell mostly on the "what" of drinking -- what chardonnay to buy, what cocktail might be nice for summer, what to serve with steak tartare. It occurred to me the other day that some of us could use a refresher on the "how" of drinking. Not in the sense of choosing stemware or the proper way to uncork champagne, but in terms of etiquette.

I was at a fancy wine dinner recently waiting for the featured award-winning vintages to be poured.

Ten empty glasses stood at each place setting for an interminable time as sponsor after sponsor, official after official, droned on about the pleasures of wine. I didn't clock the oratorical marathon, but it felt like 45 minutes. By the time the waitstaff began circulating with the first wine, it could have been cooking sherry and I'd have pinned a medal on it.

The wines were splendid in the end, to be fair, but the preprandial dust bowl violated the first rule of entertaining: Never let a glass sit empty.

I can think of several other particularly modern entertaining lapses that tend to cut into the fun of a party.

For example, denigrating the quality of a bottle someone else has brought. Or dwelling tediously on blackberry nuances and the merits of wild yeasts rather than, say, literature, art, music or the state of the world.

Into this beverage etiquette vacuum steps a timely new humour magazine with the politically incorrect title Modern Drunkard. On the surface, it's about the joys of overindulging. But that's just a conceit. Deep down, beneath its deliciously irreverent wit, it's also about drinking with a sense of style and fun, about the importance of ritual in a consumer culture preoccupied merely with the flavours in the glass.

It was launched last fall in the United States, but Canadians can read it on-line, where it started as an e-zine six years ago (http://www.moderndrunkardmagazine.com). Based in Denver, it has a circulation of about 30,000 and is published and edited by Frank Kelly Rich, a science-fiction novelist. Recent articles include "How to beat an intervention," "Let's go get drunk: Eastern Europe," and the serial feature "Dead Celebrity Drink-off," in which famous lushes such as Ernest Hemingway and Dorothy Parker are fictionally resurrected to trade insults and bon mots over a torrent of cocktails.

My favourite section, though, is "The 86 Rules of Boozing." The title is an allusion to getting 86'd -- or bounced -- from a bar. Correspondingly, many of the rules deal with the culture and proprieties of the watering hole. They could almost be grouped under the heading "How to be Humphrey Bogart."

When ordering a drink, for instance, "get the bartender's attention with eye contact and a smile." The corollary, of course, is "do not make eye contact with the bartender if you do not want a drink."

Despite its title, Modern Drunkard is a fount of decorum, especially for those who would treat drinking as a mere sport or means to get a buzz on. To wit, Rule 2: "Always toast before doing a shot," and "If you bring booze to a party, you must drink it or leave it."

Ingrate wine connoisseurs also get their wrists slapped in Rule 30. "Never complain about the quality or brand of a free drink."

There's plenty of sage advice about romance as it relates to drinking too, as might be expected.

Before you consider propositioning your server, MD cautions, remember this eternal truth: "Anyone on stage or behind the bar is 50 per cent better looking." If the math still weighs in favour of an overture, keep Rule 63 in mind. "If you're going to hit on a member of the bar staff, make sure you tip well before and after, regardless of her response."

And there are many other pearls:

"On the intimacy scale, sharing a quiet drink is between a handshake and a kiss."

"If you bring Old Milwaukee to a party, you must drink at least two cans before you start drinking the imported beer in the fridge."

"Anyone with three or more drinks in his hands has the right of way."

"If there is ever any confusion, the fuller beer is yours."

"Beer makes you mellow, champagne makes you silly, wine makes you dramatic, tequila makes you felonious."

If Modern Drunkard can be summed up in one motto, though, it might be Rule 21: "Our parents were better drinkers than we are."

After all, they didn't need a magazine to tell them how.