Janet CollinsDrinking out of bottles
January 5th 2009 22:05
courtesy - smh.blogs
One of the biggest changes in our social culture over the last few decades or so would have to be the total acceptance of drinking out of a bottle. I mean, there was a time when it was only acceptable for babies to drink out of bottles. An adult drinking out of a bottle was regarded as pretty uncouth. Drinking out of a can was regarded as even more gross.
Even now, drinking out a can, although tolerated, is not really regarded as ideal but the acceptance of – and I could even go so far as to say obsession with – drinking out of bottles shows just how much a social culture can change over a few decades. In fact, the custom now has blanket approval.
Drinking alcohol out of the bottle at one time would often indicate a problem with alcoholism or at least someone having alcoholic tendencies.
In many American movies I used to often joke to friends that after something horrible happened to one of the characters they wouldn’t only hit the bourbon but they would always drink it out of the bottle – a real indication they were heading off on a big bender.
These days you’re almost the odd one out if you drink alcohol any other way – although not exactly full bottles of bourbon but pretty much everything else.
Beer companies have gradually changed their bottles so they look a lot more slender and as different as possible to the traditional stubby so people can feel pretty cool drinking out of them. Bottled pre-mixed drinks have also developed a pretty large following so we can almost do away with glasses altogether. Even in pretty swish restaurants it is quite acceptable to drink a beer out of a bottle if you want to.
Alcohol is not the only beverage we obsessively drink out of bottles. Most of us don’t go too far without some sort of drink bottle in our hand or in our bag, whether it is water or a sports drink or a fruit juice or something. We all seem to think we will die of some form of dehydration if we don’t take a drink with us, even if we’re only going for a short walk down the street. In fact, some people get really possessive, even downright protective, of their own water bottles or sports drinks.
I recently saw a women get quite angry when someone tried to clear away her empty water bottle. Maybe she wanted to refill it with tap water but really, people do get a little worked up about their plastic bottles sometimes.
I have to admit, drink in a bottle is far more practical than say, a can. You can drink a bit and put the lid back on and save the rest for later. This is particularly handy when you are driving because you just can’t do that with a can. I am talking here of soft drink or water, not alcohol.
I know it’s been pretty acceptable to drink beer out of bottles at barbeques and similar social occasions for quite a long time now, but the turnaround in attitude is really obvious in more sophisticated venues that once would turn up their noses at anyone who refused a glass. Now it’s the customers giving the strange looks to staff offering to pour their beer into a glass.
So times have changed. You can drink beer out of a bottle nearly everywhere you go. It’s quite acceptable. There is one thing that men do when they drink beer out of bottles that I have never quite figured out. They always leave a mouthful of beer in the bottom. Why?
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Comment by Chris Champion
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Comment by Janet Collins
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But thanks for clarifying that!