Well, if you will call it a free bar...
Back in about 2001, I was working for a smallish software company. It was one of those, 'we started in a garage with 7 people and now we've got 400 people all round the world, and in just two more years we'll be as big as Microsoft' type companies. What they really meant was, 'in two years we'll be bought by someone and retire on the proceeds and feel as rich as Microsoft', but at the time, we lowly types didn't know that. It was also one of those companies that was peopled by real passionate types, who bled the mission statement, and quoted the core values to themselves if they couldn't sleep. Plus the big boss was teetotal, into emotional learning, and 'sharing' quite a lot. It really strove to be inclusive, matey, and one big ole' family.

So, scene set. In July 2001 I think it was, they shipped all staff to their US headquarters. Put us up in a hotel, a suite each, transferred us to the offices every day in a limo... We thought we'd died and gone to dot com heaven. If it wasn't for the fact that the HQ was in the arse end of nowhere and there was precisely zip to do, the free bar might not have been such a draw.*

And so to the bar... as we often said. From 5 pm to 7 pm every day, there was a free bar. You drop a dollar down, and take as many drinks as you can carry.. and as many shots per drink as you're brave enough to ask for. There was also free food - deep fried stuff, crudites, crisps... The hotel was liberally stuffed with Yanks, Brits, Germans, Spaniards, Russians and a few Netherlandish types. Now, I'm not sure which bit of brain development has shifted as people crossed the Atlantic, but there is a clear difference in drinking habits. The Yanks would sit, maudlin and morose, at the pay bar (not the free one) and have one beer and one cigarette, in two hours... while the European lot, unable to believe our luck, would squeeze gleefully into the chairs within dollar throwing distance of the free bar and proceed to drink their own body volume in free booze while wreathing themselves in blue smoke and generally having a riotous good time. After the first night of this, the shell shocked bar keep didn't return. A larger fellow was put in his place. But he didn't say no either. As you may imagine, we were quite pleased with this situation, and no harm was done as we tended to end up horizontal rather than violent.

Remember the teetotal boss mentioned above? Yes.. He'd organised a big BBQ at a local restaurant complex, everything paid for, except the booze, for the last Saturday. We weren't sure if that meant it was a dry party, or that we had to pay for our hooch. Indecision and uncertainty prevailing, a frantic two hour preparation session was decided upon. Whereas before we'd ended up moderately pissed, this was a stonker, Desperation, determination and a fear of being accosted by earnest fellows in sandals and socks drove us all to the brink and we drank the bar pretty much dry.

Imagine, if you will, a restaurant full of perhaps 200 these earnest teetotal god fearing septics, company people through and through, all in Bermuda shorts and cotton shirts. They're mingling, having a civilised evening, chatting about work, light hearted banter exchanged.. And then, the invasion, Think Vikings. Think marauders. Think people who can hold their drink but choose to really enjoy it. In groups of twenty or thirty, we troop up the rickety wooden stairs, stumbling, supporting one another, singing, laughing wildly and, I seem to recall, gesticulating with hands full of pitchers, 'smuggled' out of the hotel.

And then, see the stage. See the Karaoke machine. See the burliest German sales person and a Spanish techie grab the microphone. See the face of the boss turn grey....

And then understand why the company never invited the Europeans over the the States ever, ever again.


*actually, who am I kidding.
( ancrenne doesn't eat anything that can play video games, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 14:23, closed)

I've noticed that
many Americans frown upon over indulgence in alcohol.

Pretty much as we frown upon the practice of keeping firearms as personal defence....
( K2k6 is working with a bottle of purest yellow, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 14:28, closed)

k2k6
Thank you audience and my name is Ben Elton.

**Yay, ancrennes back**
( big-girl's-blouse has the kind of breasts that will get her banned, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 14:35, closed)

I love drinking with Yanks
Scares the shit out of them!
( disasterprone gets up at 4am every day. Lordy., Fri 9 Nov 2007, 14:37, closed)

Indeed it does
they fear our livers of steel
( mr_wicksy is called as such on the PS3 Network too, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 14:42, closed)

Livers of steel?
That'll be the sclerosis, then...

The septics may not drink as hard as we, but they do think they'll live longer for it. Little do they realise that they will not - it'll just feel that way.
( Enzyme is in ur [noun]z, [verb]in' ur [noun]z, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 14:56, closed)

American Drinking Pah!
They are shit drinkers, I had an evening (well about an hour all told)in the company of a Yank Rugby team. They should be able to hold their drink should'nt they? No. They were shitfaced to a man after about 5 pints, still made me look exceptionally Manly to the female American Grad Students............Grrrrrrr.

Oh hello Ms Ancrenne.
(celticmick_7, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 14:59, closed)

Last time I was in the States
I got told off for "drinking like an Englishman" - I was on my third "pint" (they serve beer in kiddy glasses there) while my kind hosts were still only halfway through their first...
( emvee I wanna do bad things to you, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 15:07, closed)

boyfriend of a friend's sister....
was a big yank, one who reckoned he was a hard drinker.

came out on the town with us in exeter after which we repaired back to my mate's house where the yank went on about his drinking skills.

we all drank him under the table and caused him to miss his flight home the next day.

that'll teach the swine.
( Vipros too orangey for crows, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 15:14, closed)

Yank booze intolerance
I think it's because of the draft beer. It's like normal fizzy piss lager that's been put through a soda stream 20 times. My stomach trebled in size after two pints to the point I was in agony. Never has the need to belch been felt so much.
( abefroman skating on the thin life of modern life on, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 15:31, closed)

abefroman
That still leaves the question of how affairs arose as they did across the pond in the first place. Given that most 'mericans are only a couple of generations from Europe, why didn't proper drinking survive the trip across the pond? Whence arose the love of gassy piss? The teetotaltarianism of the early puritan settlers won't explain that: it ought to have been dissolved by now.

Any anthropologists out there?
( Enzyme is in ur [noun]z, [verb]in' ur [noun]z, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 15:38, closed)

Ancrenne
I know you.

Or I think I do. I recognise the writing style.

I know what you did last summer.

Cheers
(Legless Fuck Victoria's Secret, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 15:52, closed)

England may be shit
at everything really, but our drinking is something to be proud of.

A pint and a fight
A Great British night
( disasterprone gets up at 4am every day. Lordy., Fri 9 Nov 2007, 15:52, closed)

As a
brit living in the US, I feel like a total lush and have taken to lying about my alcohol consumption in order to not sound like a complete waster (surely the first sign of impending alcoholism). I don't normally drink during the week, so when I came into work the day after my birthday a little the worse for wear, my collegues were concerened and amused.

"how much did you drink?" I was asked.
"well I had a bottle of wine.."
"A BOTTLE!!! Good god, no wonder you feel awful, were you sick?"

I'd been about to continue the conversation with "then I had some champagne and a margarita" but figured that if they were horrified by the one bottle I should probably stop there.

Sad thing is, 4 months here and my alcohol tolerance has gone through the floor as no one goes out drinking. I'm now leathered after one vodka.

At least that makes me a cheap date. Oh, hang on...
(Rakky (forgot her password) Jan Moir is a stupid bitch, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 16:35, closed)

Enzyme
The answer to why Americans love their fizzy piss can, I believe, be traced back to prohibition. When this was lifted back in the days of god knows when, the Yanks had lost the ability and knowledge of brewing to an extent. And because they had got used to drinking soft drinks, beer was brewed to be correspondingly fizzy, and virtually tasteless (anyone out there that actually thinks stuff like Budweiser tastes nice is seriously deluded - even my ex wife thought it was piss, and everyone knows that girls are supposed to like it. It's all in the marketing. And don't even get me started on Bud Lite! Anheuser Busch breweries should hang their heads).

Anyway, I digress. There is actually now a semi-decent brewing industry growing in the US as far as micro-breweries go, and I have sampled some reasonable brews in recent years.

However, give me a decent pint of a good old British real ale with a suitably ludicrous name like Wobbly Bob any day of the week.

There endeth the history lesson. It's all true, I read it in a book...
( Davros' Granddad what's the deal with Paul McCartney's mouth?, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 17:01, closed)

That's the problem! I was born in the wrong country!
Okay, on a fairly typical night it's not uncommon for me to have between three and six 12 oz beers. As I don't get even slightly loopy from this I've never seen it as an issue, but my ex thought I was a raging alcoholic.

And there have been many others that agreed with her about this.

I blame it on the fucking Puritans- if it's any fun at all, they hated it. And they passed that idiotic view right along to their descendants.

That's it, man. As soon as I can I'm moving to the fucking UK!
(The Resident Loon is currently a starving artist, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 17:59, closed)

'Merkin drinking
Strangely since moving to NYC my alcohol tolerance has increased exponentially. Probably because one of my best mates is Scottish.

Anyway, when I first moved here, we would occasionally go for a quiet pint or two and a gossip on a Wednesday night (as well as getting bladdered on Friday and Saturday). And then one day one of my lovely American housemates took me to one side and said how concerned she was about my drinking problem. Apparently getting wasted every weekend, throwing up in our bathroom and bringing nameless men home is fine. A quiet pint or two during the week makes one an alcoholic.
(kitteny_goodness, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 22:01, closed)

16 replies!
Blimey, I feel famous! And definitely want to start a 'who gets the most replies to a post' comp as I feel my ego could be bolstered by the results. At least today.
( ancrenne doesn't eat anything that can play video games, Tue 13 Nov 2007, 15:46, closed)

No problem!
Does this help? That's 18 and counting...
( Davros' Granddad what's the deal with Paul McCartney's mouth?, Tue 13 Nov 2007, 17:12, closed)