to what extent does your life revolve around alcohol?

Bringing a book to a bar in the middle of the day to have lunch + chatting with the bartender = one of my favorite things

However, customers and some bartenders are inclined to give me suspicious glances when I read. As if staring and thumbing your phone wasn't weird!

I am very cheap thrifty & alcohol, especially out, is expensive, so I rarely drink unless someone else is picking up the tab. I don't care about it enough to bother otherwise.

Oh god yeah, reading in pubs is wonderful and something I would never give up. You can't really have more than a couple of drinks in that situation though, and it's more of a winter thing. You need the right pubs around you as well.

Chatting with the bartender or dinner at the bar in general is great.

ppl sit outside and chat with whomever walks by

Oh, man, we generally have a standing (sitting) neighbor night in which 20 people or so, give or take, hold court at the end of the block every Friday once summer silly season of camps and stuff is over, grown ups drinking and kids running around like loons. At first I thought the adults were relatively modest drinkers, and then I realized that they'd (the dudes at least) likely already been drinking a while before I got there and by the time my household showed up they were sort of in a lull. And then, much later, once most people had gone back home, the hardcore start diving right back in again. Everyone is twice my size, like proper midwest ogres, so I guess it just takes a bit longer before they get all wobbly.

Communal home drinking is the best! Our only complications are 1)open containers are illegal in public so technically we could all get tickets every time (occasionally someone does--putting your drink in an innocuous cup or glass is key), and 2) that a couple of non-social, non-smoking neighbors object to the smoke. I am not unfeeling--we moved our usual place to further from their windows--but it's inevitable that everyone's outdoor space is minimal and shared and them's the breaks. Close your windows. Also if you want to complain about us, please refrain from screaming at your child in the hallways every day because community is a two-way street.

It would be nice to have a porch or a yard, undoubtedly.

I will read in bars, and will even work a crossword puzzle. But in orbit & JinC are also right that hanging on the stoop/porch/whatever and chatting with neighbors and passersby is also Most Chill.

Further, when I smoke pot I sometimes don't drink at all, to feel it on its own. That said, sometimes I'll have a beer as a centering/calming mechanism if I get anxious or feel unmoored while high. My body knows exactly what to do with beer, so that anchoring familiarity helps.

my favorite places to drink:

a front porch
a back porch
a kitchen
a bar

That said, sometimes I'll have a beer as a centering/calming mechanism if I get anxious or feel unmoored while high. My body knows exactly what to do with beer, so that anchoring familiarity helps.

yea agreed

i live in a community that is very much tied together by front porches, it is part of what makes this neighborhood so much nicer than other areas where i've lived

I love to drink in airports

Don't get me wrong. Airport drinking is barely defensible. It is definitely the worst place to drink, except for on the plane itself. Worse than a hotel bar. But I have grown to love it.

oh me too

Everyone is twice my size, like proper midwest ogres

<3 my Dutch and Swedish people

Me three! Getting to the airport early before a trip starts for a martini is one of life's civilizing pleasures.

Mostly, maybe, the way it feels like nobody can judge you for starting at 9:30 AM because it's 2230 where you're from and all you have to do for the next 10.7 hours is comply with the seatbelt sign

it really is nice, I got United Club passes once and it was like a revelation. even if it was just free light beer, still was great

being hungover on a plane is awful though

Tomboto OTM. I was just typing exactly that: Airports are great for drinking partly because it's a no-judgment zone. Everyone is going somewhere, you're never going to see any of them again, and no one knows what time zone you came from or which you're going to. Also no one knows whether you're terrified of flying, or whether your flight boards in three minutes, or whatever. The tyranny of airline travel is universally acknowledged, so no one will ever judge your response to it.

So if you're observed chugging down three bourbon & ginger ales at 10:30 AM on a Wednesday while wearing a business suit? No problemo. Whatever you need, dude.

The only downside is the prices are excessive. But if you're a business traveler and you play your cards right, you can expense it.

i stopped smoking in january after 30+ years so i can't really drink. or at least i don't want to because i know it will just make me want to smoke. i think i had two glasses of wine in the month of july. i kinda like it. makes me feel like an adult. i reckon if i keep with the not smoking for another couple of years i would lose that association. but i drank to get drunk for almost my entire adult life and smoked all through that so its a pretty strong association. i can't smoke pot either because again it just makes me want to smoke cigs and pot stresses me out. my goal is to be one of those people who just occasionally goes out to dinner and orders one fancy cocktail for fun. healthy!

i have been eating small amounts of mushrooms this summer for stress. they work! but i can't do it every day. i don't trip or anything. i can work and talk to people and all that. but they do provide a little mood lift/stress relief. still considering whether i want to go the pharma route for stress/anxiety. mushrooms seem pretty healthy. but they don't sell them at walgreens. i've also been using the nicotine lozenges as needed since january. they don't provide the medicinal benefits of a cigarette though and i still sometimes feel like i'm gonna lose it.

(i also cut back on drinking a lot since my wife stopped completely about 6 years ago. that definitely made it easier to go without this year. i do like being at the point where i don't care if people smoke and drink around me. it's a very liberating feeling.)

but carry on drinking, all you people!

being hungover on a plane is awful though

but being drunk on a plane is a+++++

being hungover on a plane is awful though

Shakes On A Plane.

Never been a daily drinker, was never much for having a single beer or glass of wine or two. I've always binged, usually isolated to weekends. Since becoming self-employed though that has definitely extended into weekdays. When I'm busy with work I don't drink at all. I don't even think about it or crave or miss it. But once I crack that first one I generally don't stop until I'm a stumbling mess, especially if I mix in some weed. Luckily for everyone involved I don't get angry or violent or horribly embarrassing, (or so I've been assured). It's much better now that I live where I can walk or easily get a ride share.

I've also never really kept booze around the house. It's always been something I go out to do, whether with people or occasionally alone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrM39m22jH4

XP I'm not so sure that's true. I prefer to be mostly sober through security, tipsy at boarding so I can then get mildly drunk on the plane and sleep. I've been hammered on a plane a few times and it's terrible.

Just went to SF on Virgin America and their back-of-seat screen-thingy-doodle has a way you can order drinks whenever you want (as opposed to just when the cart comes by).

You can even send a drink to another person, via seat number. Were I not Very Married I would be trying to figure out how to use that for romantic advantage.

I've done it on ILX.

Ha, someone bought me a drink on Southwest earlier this week, just to be nice! They had coupons to use up.

tastes bad and i don't like the high

Don't get me wrong. Airport drinking is barely defensible. It is definitely the worst place to drink, except for on the plane itself. Worse than a hotel bar. But I have grown to love it.

― El Tomboto, Thursday, August 10, 2017 11:45 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

a good hotel bar, that even locals will occasionally go to but consider pricey, is a joy

bad hotel bars are one of the worst things in existence

I think you're right, i may have to reconsider. Hotel bars are worse than airports, on average.

Drinking & dining at the bar in certain kinds of asian (thai / ramen / vietnamese) restaurants often has a hotel bar feeling for me

before bh died i had no involvement with the local pub thing and rarely drank.
bh died, and now i know everyone at the local, and i drink a lot more.
and i have no problems with it.
i am now basically Norm from Cheers, i walk into my local and i know i will have a few hours of chat and banter that will make me smile.
is this a problem ?
quite possibly.
but give me this over the alternative of being at home and lonely.

A nightcap at even the most corporate hotel bar is yet another of life's quiet joys.

i had absolutely no interest in bars once you couldn't smoke inside them.

if you could still smoke inside on the east coast i would smoke and drink much more. thanks bloomberg

When I learned about Laphroiag 10 it greatly improved my overall hotel bar experience tbf

the great bourbon renaissance/marketing push got booker's into a lot of hotel bars and that is cool with me

my dad (rip) was a bells whiskey man day to day, but laphroiag was his special day groove.

mmm booker's

mmm laphroiag

mmm phenols

Wrong

laphroaig tastes like tcp

and not in a good way

the great bourbon renaissance/marketing push got booker's into a lot of hotel bars and that is cool with me

Fuckers recently doubled the price of a bottle.

yeah, that part not good. I should have marked that tip "expense account only"

OK, I was wondering if the drink price was still completely nonsensical at this hotel restaurant, and it is:
http://prod-admin1.denihan.atex.cniweb.net:8080/fileserver/file/12306/filename/Primehouse%20Wine%20List%204.20.2017.pdf

Angels Envy 25
Basil Hayden 14
Bookers 12
Bulleit 12
Colonel E.H. Taylor 14
Knob Creek 12
Maker’s Mark 14
Noah’s Mill 16
Willett, ‘Pot Still Reserve’ 24
Woodford Reserve 16

So uh, Bulleit and Bookers are the same price despite one being twice as much per bottle, and Maker's costs more than either?

all the prices are gouging, but the pricing makes absolutely no sense when you gauge the different drinks against each other

oh yeah and jack daniels is $13

lol

i've done it enough times but i think i am done ordering a whiskey neat in a bar, it hurts to pay that much for something that i can have so easily at home. if i'm going to pay $15 for a drink i want some labor going into that drink

Menu prices have very little to do with what each thing costs in a retail setting.