After a trip to the United States in 1931, the great G.K. Chesterton (great in both form and matter) penned an essay entitled, “The Cowardice of Cocktails and Other Things.” Hardly an enemy of the Drink, Chesterton comes down rather hard on what was then being called the Cocktail Habit. Why?
For two reasons: the cocktail’s origins and its use. The cocktail started, Chesterton charges, during Prohibition because of husbands who were too pusillanimous to drink in front of their wives but who needed a stiff one to sit down with them for dinner. These uxorious milksops wished to consume something in secret that “could be gulped down quickly” and that ideally would be “very strong for its size.” Hence was born the early evening cocktail and the hasty Happy Hour.
Which brings us to GK’s second beef against the cocktail: its use as an aperitif before dinner. Chesterton, whose own appetite was as keen as his wit, finds the use of alcohol as a stimulant for hunger absurd. “I never yet needed a tot of rum,” he writes, “to help me go over the top and face the mortal perils of luncheon.” It is one thing to need an anesthetic to face pain, but “what are we to say of those who have to take an anesthetic before they can face pleasure?”
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