Drinking culture - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Drinking culture refers to the customs and practices associated with the consumption of alcoholic beverage

Alcoholic beverage

An alcoholic beverage is a drink containing ethanol, commonly known as alcohol. Alcoholic beverages are divided into three general classes: beers, wines, and spirits. They are legally consumed in most countries, and over 100 countries have laws regulating their production, sale, and consumption...

s. Although alcoholic beverages and social attitudes toward drinking vary around the world, nearly every civilization

Civilization

Civilization is a sometimes controversial term that has been used in several related ways. Primarily, the term has been used to refer to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally...

has independently discovered the processes of brewing

Brewing

Brewing is the production of beer through steeping a starch source in water and then fermenting with yeast. Brewing has taken place since around the 6th millennium BCE, and archeological evidence suggests that this technique was used in ancient Egypt...

beer

Beer

Beer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...

, fermenting

Fermentation (wine)

The process of fermentation in wine turns grape juice into an alcoholic beverage. During fermentation, yeast interact with sugars in the juice to create ethanol, commonly known as ethyl alcohol, and carbon dioxide...

wine

Wine

Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...

, and distilling

Distillation

Distillation is a method of separating mixtures based on differences in volatilities of components in a boiling liquid mixture. Distillation is a unit operation, or a physical separation process, and not a chemical reaction....

spirits

Distilled beverage

A distilled beverage, liquor, or spirit is an alcoholic beverage containing ethanol that is produced by distilling ethanol produced by means of fermenting grain, fruit, or vegetables...

.

Alcohol and its effects have been present in societies throughout history. Drinking is documented in the Hebrew and Christian Bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

s, in art history, in Greek literature as old as Homer

Homer

In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...

, and in Confucius’s Analects.

Social drinking

"Social drinking" refers to casual drinking in a social setting without an intent to get drunk. Good news is often celebrated by a group of people having a few drinks. For example, drinks may be served to "wet the baby's head" in the celebration of a birth. Buying someone a drink is a gesture of goodwill. It may be an expression of gratitude, or it may mark the resolution of a dispute.

Drinking etiquette

For the purposes of buying rounds of drinks in English public house

Public house

A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...

s, William Greaves, a retired London journalist, devised a set of etiquette guidelines as a Saturday morning essay in the defunct Today
Today (UK newspaper)
Today was a national newspaper in the United Kingdom, which was published between 1986 and 1995.-History:Today, with the American newspaper USA Today as inspiration, launched on Tuesday, 4 March 1986, with the front page headline, "Second Spy Inside GCHQ". At 18 pence, it was a middle-market...

newspaper. Known as Greaves' Rules, the guidelines were based upon his long experience of pubs and rounds. The rules were later re-commissioned by the Daily Telegraph and published in that newspaper on November 20, 1993. Copies of the rules soon appeared in many bars throughout the United Kingdom.

When an individual arrives at a pub, common practice invites the newcomer to unilaterally offer a drink to a companion, with the unspoken understanding that when the drink has been nearly consumed, his/her companion will reciprocate. Trust and fair play

Fair Play

Fair Play or Fairplay usually refers to Sportsmanship.It may also refer to:* Fair and unfair play, in cricket* The Fair Play for Cuba Committee, an activist group in the United States early in 1960...

are the root of the rules, though there are occasions (such as a requirement of one of the drinkers to need to carry out more important jobs, if any can be conceived of) where the rules can be broken, and were itemised by Greaves in his article.

Kate Fox

Kate Fox

Kate Fox is a social anthropologist. She is the director of the Social Issues Research Centre an independent, not-for-profit organisation . She has written several books.- Background:...

, a social anthropologist came up with a similar idea in her book Watching the English, but concluded their rationale was the need to minimise the possibility of violence between drinking companions.

Free drinks

Various culture

Culture

Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...

s and tradition

Tradition

A tradition is a ritual, belief or object passed down within a society, still maintained in the present, with origins in the past. Common examples include holidays or impractical but socially meaningful clothes , but the idea has also been applied to social norms such as greetings...

s feature the social practice of providing free alcoholic drinks for others. For example, during a wedding reception

Wedding reception

A wedding reception is a party held after the completion of a marriage ceremony. It is held usually as hospitality for those who have attended the wedding, hence the name reception: the couple receives society, in the form of family and friends, for the first time as a married couple. Hosts...

, or a bar mitzvah, free drinks are often served to guests, a practice that is known as “an open bar.” Free drinks may also be offered to increase attendance at a social or business function. They are commonly offered to casino

Casino

In modern English, a casino is a facility which houses and accommodates certain types of gambling activities. Casinos are most commonly built near or combined with hotels, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships or other tourist attractions...

patrons to entice them to continue gambling

Gambling

Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...

. In the United States, fraternity

Fraternity

A fraternity is a brotherhood, though the term usually connotes a distinct or formal organization. An organization referred to as a fraternity may be a:*Secret society*Chivalric order*Benefit society*Friendly society*Social club*Trade union...

houses on college campuses often serve free beer to attract potential pledges.

A further example is the “ladies drink free” policy of some bars

Bar (establishment)

A bar is a business establishment that serves alcoholic drinks — beer, wine, liquor, and cocktails — for consumption on the premises.Bars provide stools or chairs that are placed at tables or counters for their patrons. Some bars have entertainment on a stage, such as a live band, comedians, go-go...

, which is intended to attract more women customers (who would attract more men to the bar).

Large corporations (especially in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

) may have a favored bar at which they hold private functions that offer free drinks to attendees.

Session drinking

Session drinking is a chiefly British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

term that refers to drinking a large quantity of beer during a "session" (i.e. a specific period of time) without becoming intoxicated. A session is generally a social occasion.

A “session beer”, such as a session bitter, is a beer that has a moderate or relative low alcohol content.

In the United States, a recent session beer definition has been proposed by beer writer Lew Bryson. His Session Beer Project blog includes a definition of 4.5% ABV or less for session beer. Followers of this definition include Notch Brewing, a session only beer brand. The Brewer Association has adopted a new category within their Great American Beer Fest competition which states a "session beer" is from 4.0%-5.1% ABV

ABV

ABV is a three-letter acronym that may refer to:* Alcohol by volume, a measure of the alcohol content of alcoholic drinks* Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, Nigeria, from its IATA airport code...

Binge drinking

Binge drinking is sometimes defined as drinking alcohol solely for the purpose of intoxication. It is quite common for binge drinking to occur in a social situation, which creates some overlap between social drinking and binge drinking.

Some researchers use a low-threshold definition in which binge drinking refers to a woman consuming four drinks, or a man consuming five drinks, in one sitting. But because drinking occasions can last up to seven hours, many such bingers never become intoxicated. Clinically and traditionally, however, binge drinking is defined as a period of continuing intoxication lasting at least two days, during which the binger neglects her/his usual life activities (work, family, etc.).

The concept of a "binge" has been somewhat elastic over the years, implying consumption of alcohol far beyond that which is socially acceptable. In earlier decades, "going on a binge" meant drinking over the course of several days until one was no longer able to continue drinking. This usage is known to have entered the English language as early as 1854; it derives from an English dialectal word meaning to "soak" or to "fill a boat with water". (OED, American Heritage Dictionary)

University

University

A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...

students have a reputation for engaging in binge drinking, most famously in the USA, UK, Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

, New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, Northern Europe

Northern Europe

Northern Europe is the northern part or region of Europe. Northern Europe typically refers to the seven countries in the northern part of the European subcontinent which includes Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Finland and Sweden...

, and Belgium

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

. Some reasons for this propensity for binge drinking are that many university students are living on their own for the first time, are free of parental supervision, and are among peers.

It is widely observed that in areas of Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

where child

Child

Biologically, a child is generally a human between the stages of birth and puberty. Some vernacular definitions of a child include the fetus, as being an unborn child. The legal definition of "child" generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger than the age of majority...

ren and adolescents routinely experience alcohol early and with parental approval, binge drinking tends to be less prevalent. Typically, a distinction is drawn between northern and southern Europe, with the northerners being the binge drinkers. As early as the eighth century, Saint Boniface

Saint Boniface

Saint Boniface , the Apostle of the Germans, born Winfrid, Wynfrith, or Wynfryth in the kingdom of Wessex, probably at Crediton , was a missionary who propagated Christianity in the Frankish Empire during the 8th century. He is the patron saint of Germany and the first archbishop of Mainz...

was writing to Cuthbert, Archbishop of Canterbury

Archbishop of Canterbury

The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...

, to report how "In your diocese, the vice of drunkenness is too frequent. This is an evil peculiar to pagans and to our race. Neither the Franks nor the Gauls nor the Lombards nor the Romans nor the Greeks commit it".

It is possible, however, that "the vice of drunkenness" was present in all European nations. The 16th century Frenchman Rabelais wrote comedic and absurd

Surreal humour

Surreal humour is a form of humour based on violations of causal reasoning with events and behaviours that are logically incongruent. Constructions of surreal humour involve bizarre juxtapositions, non-sequiturs, irrational situations, and/or expressions of nonsense.The humour arises from a...

satires illustrating his countrymen's drinking habits. And Saint Augustin used the example of a drunkard in Rome to illustrate certain spiritual principles.

Binge drinking is common in Scandinavia

Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...

n countries, even in Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

and Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

despite their history of high prices of and restricted access to alcohol in recent decades. For example, the Norwegian

Norway

cultural phenomenon known as Russ

Russ

Russ is a participant in the traditional Norwegian upper secondary high school graduation ceremony known as russefeiring . Russ are easily recognized by their distinctive overalls and caps resembling student caps...

provides high school seniors with a socially accepted venue for binge drinking. For younger people, from about 14–15 years and until leaving adolescence, binge drinking may be the main form of drinking. In Sweden

Sweden

people tend to drink huge amounts every weekend and especially during holidays.Denmark

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

, which has the most lax access to alcohol in Scandinavia, unsurprisingly also has the highest alcohol consumption among teenagers, not only the highest in Scandinavia but also in the world. Still, the alcohol consumption among teenagers in Denmark is lower than the alcohol consumption of adults in Denmark, which is only average worldwide.

Significantly, Northern European countries are among the most stringent in their punishment of offenders driving under the influence of alcohol, sometimes imposing a lifetime loss of driving privileges without appeal.

Some studies have noted traditional, cultural differences between Northern and Southern Europe. A difference in perception may also account to some extent for historically noted cultural differences: Northern Europeans drink beer

Beer

, which in the past was often of a low alcohol content (2.5% compared to today's 5%). In pre-industrial society

Pre-industrial society

Pre-industrial society refers to specific social attributes and forms of political and cultural organization that were prevalent before the advent of the Industrial Revolution. It is followed by the industrial society....

, beer was safer to drink than water, because it had been boiled and contained alcohol. Southern Europeans drink wine

Wine

and fortified wines (10-20% alcohol by volume). Traditionally, wine was watered and honeyed, drinking full strength wine was considered barbaric in Republican Rome. Nor does binge drinking necessarily equate with substantially higher national averages of per capita/per annum litres of pure alcohol consumption. There is also a physical aspect to national differences worldwide, which has not yet been thoroughly studied, whereby some ethnic groups have a greater capacity for alcohol metabolization through the liver enzymes alcohol dehydrogenase

Alcohol dehydrogenase

Alcohol dehydrogenases are a group of dehydrogenase enzymes that occur in many organisms and facilitate the interconversion between alcohols and aldehydes or ketones with the reduction of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide...

and acetaldehyde dehydrogenase

Acetaldehyde dehydrogenase

Acetaldehyde dehydrogenases are dehydrogenase enzymes which catalyze the conversion of acetaldehyde into acetic acid. The oxidation of acetaldehyde to acetate can be summarized as follows:...

.

These varying capacities do not, however, avoid all health risks inherent in heavy alcohol consumption. Alcohol abuse is associated with a variety of negative health and safety outcomes. This is true no matter the individual's or the ethnic group's perceived ability to "handle alcohol". Persons who believe themselves immune to the effects of alcohol may often be the most at risk for health concerns and the most dangerous of all operating a vehicle.

"Chronic heavy drinkers display functional tolerance when they show few obvious signs of intoxication even at high blood alcohol concentrations (BAC's), which in others would be incapacitating or even fatal. Because the drinker does not experience significant behavioral impairment as a result of drinking,tolerance may facilitate the consumption of increasing amounts of alcohol. This can result in physical dependence and alcohol-related organ damage."

Speed drinking

Speed drinking or competitive drinking is the drinking of a small or moderate quantity of beer in the shortest period of time, without an intention of getting heavily intoxicated. Unlike binge drinking, its focus is on competition or the establishment of a record. Speed drinkers typically drink a light beer, such as lager

Lager

Lager is a type of beer made from malted barley that is brewed and stored at low temperatures. There are many types of lager; pale lager is the most widely-consumed and commercially available style of beer in the world; Pilsner, Bock, Dortmunder Export and Märzen are all styles of lager...

, and they allow it to warm and lose its carbonation in order to shorten the drinking time.

The Guinness World Records

Guinness World Records

Guinness World Records, known until 2000 as The Guinness Book of Records , is a reference book published annually, containing a collection of world records, both human achievements and the extremes of the natural world...

(1990 edition, p. 464) listed several records for speed drinking. Among these were:

Peter G. Dowdeswell
Peter Dowdeswell
English gourmand Peter Dowdeswell, born in London on 29 July 1940, is among the most successful competitive eaters in the recorded history of the sport...

(born July 29, 1940) of Earls Barton
Earls Barton
Earls Barton is a village and civil parish in eastern Northamptonshire, notable for its Saxon church and shoe-making heritage.The village was the inspiration for the film Kinky Boots and part of the film was shot here...

, Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire is a landlocked county in the English East Midlands, with a population of 629,676 as at the 2001 census. It has boundaries with the ceremonial counties of Warwickshire to the west, Leicestershire and Rutland to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshire to the south-east,...

, England, drank 2 litre
Litre
pic|200px|right|thumb|One litre is equivalent to this cubeEach side is 10 cm1 litre water = 1 kilogram water The litre is a metric system unit of volume equal to 1 cubic decimetre , to 1,000 cubic centimetres , and to 1/1,000 cubic metre...

s (3.5 imperial pints; about 66.7 U.S.fluid ounces
United States customary units
United States customary units are a system of measurements commonly used in the United States. Many U.S. units are virtually identical to their imperial counterparts, but the U.S. customary system developed from English units used in the British Empire before the system of imperial units was...

) in 6 seconds on February 7, 1975.

Steven Petrosino (born November, 1951) of New Cumberland, Pennsylvania
New Cumberland, Pennsylvania
New Cumberland is a municipality at the eastern tip of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, United States. New Cumberland was incorporated as a borough on March 21, 1831. The population was 7,349 at the 2000 census...

, drank 1 litre (33 U.S. fluid ounces) in 1.3 seconds on June 22, 1977, at the Gingerbreadman Pub in Carlisle, Pennsylvania
Carlisle, Pennsylvania
Carlisle is a borough in and the county seat of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, United States. The name is traditionally pronounced with emphasis on the second syllable. Carlisle is located within the Cumberland Valley, a highly productive agricultural region. As of the 2010 census, the borough...

.

Neither of these records had been defeated when Guinness World Records banned all alcohol-related records from their book in 1991.

Former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke

Bob Hawke

Robert James Lee "Bob" Hawke AC GCL was the 23rd Prime Minister of Australia from March 1983 to December 1991 and therefore longest serving Australian Labor Party Prime Minister....

held a record for the fastest consumption of "a yard" of beer. He drank 2.5 pints (1.4 litres) in 12 seconds. Other sources say he took only 11 seconds.

External links

- Greaves' Rules

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