For centuries, writers have waxed eloquent on the power of drink to raise us high, lay us low, and put us on equal footing with the stranger buying the next round. Here is a unique collection of the world’s best literature in praise of grape, grain, and the singular joy inspired by…

The Muse In The Bottle

To say truth, nothing is more erroneous than the common observation, that men who are ill-natured and quarrelsome when they are drunk, are very worthy persons when they are sober: for drink, in reality, doth not reverse nature, or create passions in men which did not exist in them before. It takes away the guard of reason, and consequently forces us to produce those symptoms which many, when sober, have art enough to conceal. It heightens and inflames our passions, (generally indeed that passion which is uppermost in our mind) so that the angry temper, the amorous, the generous, the good-humored, the avaricious, and all other dispositions of men, are in their cups heightened and exposed. —Henry Fielding, from Tom Jones

The triumph of the toast. The camaraderie of the bar. The punishment of the hangover, and the sweet joy of living to imbibe another day…

To drink is both a sublime act of religion and a celebration of humanity. The alchemical powers of the grape and the grain are felt at weddings and wakes, in darkened booths and lively taverns, in hallowed traditions and counter-cultural escapes. This delightfully intoxicating anthology celebrates the diverse pleasures of drinking in tales and toasts collected from some of our most well-known writers and poets as well as from folklore, philosophers, and the Bible. Here are such beloved authors as Charles Dickens, H.L. Mencken, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Frank McCourt, Washington Irving, Ray Bradbury, and Mark Twain, writing in praise of drinking and the festivity which surrounds it, touching on virtually every aspect of human experience: birth, death, loss, love, camaraderie, hunting, and traveling.

From Henry Fielding’s libertine Tom Jones (“Drunkenness shews the mind of a man, as a mirrour reflects his person”) to Lucius Beebe’s “A Drinker’s Observations” (“When the King of Spain asks you to have a drink in the Ritz Bar, which he will probably do if you’re a regular, it’s more polite not to order a King’s Death, which is what he himself will be drinking, but to call it a Royal Highball”), these worldly-wise pieces chronicle the human experience at its most heightened—and entertaining. There is an upper class country club gentleman’s vehement defense of the club’s lifetime bartender and keeper of secrets in John P. Marquand’s “Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot?” Icelandic warriors drink the old-fashioned way in the Norse tale, “Egil’s Saga.” In Angela’s Ashes, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Frank McCourt reveals the hard, sobering truths hiding in his first pub crawl. And at the height of Prohibition, two swells go in search of a champagne breakfast in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Mr. In and Mr. Out.”

Whether extolling the delights of the vine, lamenting the pitfalls of having too much, or longing for that muse in a bottle which transcends pain and boredom, the stories collected here are like a night on the town with great friends, tales that promise an evening of witticisms, wisdom, truth, and divine company—the perfect drinking companion for anyone in a celebratory mood.

Charles A. Coulombe writes and lectures on a variety of religious, political, economic, and literary topics. He is also the author of A History of the Popes. His articles appear in many periodicals: Success Magazine, West Coast Review of Books, Reflections, New Oxford Review, FATE, The L.A. Reader, Science Fiction Review, and more. He lives in Los Angeles.

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