Some alcoholic drinks more acceptable than others

[Wellhellotherelove]

Why is it more acceptable to talk about having a ‘cheeky glass of wine’ or to have things around the house talking about how great gin is, but you wouldn’t really see the same for cider, vodka, a rum and Coke?

Thinking about the days pre covid when I’d quite often be at ‘work drinks’ most weeks and without fail, despite a whole pub’s worth of drinks, everyone would either be drinking beer (mostly the men), wine or gin and tonic.

I cannot ever think of or imagine someone saying ‘a vodka and coke please’ - but why??

You’re just as likely to get smashed on wine or gin as you are on rum, cider etc.

I see women on social media who for the most part try and demonstrate a healthy lifestyle yet quite often will have a photo of them with a large glass of wine. It’s never seen as a problem.

I’m not tee total by any means, so this isn’t a judgey post (i love a g&t!) I am genuinely interested as to how certain drinks have become more acceptable and how someone posting about having a cheek wine every evening is not seen as anything unusual!

I would say wine, gin and beer are all acquired tastes. While there’s nothing wrong with adults drinking spirits with coke or lemonade, they are also drunk by teenagers as they are sweet enough to mask the alcohol. Cider (if not too dry) can also be a beginners drink. So some drinks are seen as more grown up than others.

@QuestionableMouse

Gin is trendy now but it was known as mother's ruin for a long time so that wasn't always the case... 🙄🙄😂😂😂

That came with the imposition of standardisation

It was no longer the case that you could buy versions rough and adulterated enough to stand a chance of acting as an abortifacient

Kizzy - I don't think anyone can say gin is not a 'grown up drink' it tastes like particularly strong paints tripper if we're honest! I think it's all about marketing/minimising and drinks companies allowing us to feel ok about our drink choices.

Down a few pink gin and rhubarb tonics, all good and fine to splash over social media. Down a few vodka and cokes, you look like an alike.

Alkie not alike

Paint stripper not paints tripper (though that still works)

A friend always drink Campari and soda, which I have never seen anyone other that old ladies on the telly order in pubs. It's not currently cool in the slightest but perhaps it's due a make over and resurgence!

I think “acceptable “ is the wrong word, it’s more about what’s fashionable.

Gin is definitely fashionable now. My parents always had it (Gordon's gin and tonic before Sunday lunch), but any vodka they'd been given lived at the back of the cupboard under the stairs. They didn't get rid of it until my younger brother went to university, and took a bottle a term with him.

I like dubonnet, but that's deeply unfashionable at the moment! Aperol and Campari spritzes are becoming more common though, which I like.

@evilharpy

I worked in pubs and clubs in the late 90s before social media happened and remember lots of marketing campaigns where hot, usually scantily clad girls would come in to offer free shots/alcopops and give away tat as prizes. After one of these promo nights, there would always be a run on that particular drink for a few weeks. I remember all sorts of bizarre alcopops, Aftershock (evil stuff), various types of vodka. Vodka and Red Bull was huge for a while. Vodka in general was far more popular than gin, and prosecco wasn't very popular at all.

It's all about the marketing. I was a gin drinker even back then though when the only choice in most bars was Gordon's.

I remember, and this was in the early/mid 00s but before smoking ban, these sorts of promos and I also remember one run by Camel Light cigarettes. Scantily clad women with a tray like they serve ice cream from in the theatre full of cigarettes giving away packs to 10 to anyone that wanted them!

Being smokers at the time, as most young people were, we all went back several times and stocked ourselves up for the following week!

Seems utterly mad now.

The gin thing is interesting as there's a lot going on with the history of it, as others have said - starting out as incredibly cheap, incredibly strong, then demonised as mothers' ruin, then rehabilitated alongside the change in the law to allow for small batch artisanal distillation.

I've drunk gin for a good twenty years or so. My mum never stopped worrying about this (once exclaiming over the fact that I not only had gin in the house but more than one kind ); it was mothers' ruin to her. My brothers used to mock me over their cider and beer as they saw gin as a posh drink, for hoorays after a hard day on the trading floor.

I think one of the reasons vodka is seen as worrying by some is that it's seen as a means of delivering alcohol first and foremost, and flavour comes from the mixer. My dad, who worked a bit with street homeless people, certainly saw it like this, as the method of choice for just getting alcohol on board.

So both parents with strong views about some spirits, both very partial to a good single malt.

It's just fashion and it will change again. Same as with food, something is 'in' for a few years then everyone gets sick of it

@squirrelssecretnamechange I can highly recommend apple sourz,vodka and lemonade 😋

@Happytentoes

It’s fashion , snobbery; flavoured vodka was the thing about 10 years ago; wine flights in some restaurants. Small craft gins and specialist tonics have elevated the middle class drink of choice into something to chatter about. But anyone who describes their wine/beer/gin as ‘cheeky’ is ridiculous ime.

Yes it's fashion. Gin is on its way out of fashion I think.

Wonder what the next fashion will be?

@babbi

Can you ask them to bring back Taboo?

Rum will be the next fashion but the problem is that it has to be aged.

It's fashion, but it's also a way to normalise drinking and present it as 'acceptable'. For example 'it's wine o'clock' or the memes about being on the gin during lockdown doing home learning. While some people are joking, many really do have a glass bottle of wine at the end of every day and think that's ok and everyone else is because of the presentation of it on social media. As you say, it wouldn't be considered acceptable to say 'time for a case of lager' or 'half bottle of vodka for me, I deserve it after the week I've had' would it?

Disclaimer: years of living with an alcoholic have given me a very jaded view of what's considered socially acceptable when it comes to alcohol consumption

It’s all marketing and social conditioning.

Gin is a spirit so why is it seen as more professional

Is it? I think you're making things up in your own mind to be honest.

As you say, it wouldn't be considered acceptable to say 'time for a case of lager' or 'half bottle of vodka for me, I deserve it after the week I've had' would it

But those amounts are excessive. No-one would consider the equivalent amounts of wine or gin acceptable either. If someone said they'd had 3 bottles of wine or 14 G&Ts people would be equally as the lager or vodka examples.

Definitely mostly marketing.

But also age.... My tolerance for sweet drinks is much much lower now than when I was younger. I never particularly enjoyed the pre-made vodka sweet drinks, but I'd enjoy a rum and coke or whatever. Similarly, I preferred wines that were less dry - lots of chardonnays and the like.

Now, I'm happiest drinking the kind of sauvignon blanc that makes your tongue pucker and would always choose a gin and tonic over some other, sweeter, mixed drink. I will also drink beer fairly regularly in the summer whereas in my 20s I didn't like beer at all unless I'd added a whole lot of lemonade to make a shandy. I used to love a bit of port but even the fancy stuff is too sweet for me now as a rule (although I DO like a bit of dessert wine in a fancy restaurant with some suitably poncey dessert or home made biscotti or something! )

I remember my Dad telling me that as a young man rum and coke was their drink of choice but he hasn't had a coke in about 20 years so certainly no rum and cokes!

A generational thing is my guess (plus marketing).

When you are young and starting out, it isn't cool drinking what your parents drink, so marketing lashes on and creates the new hype to feel cool about.

Also those in your parents generation who got 'hooked' will be the alcoholics on the bench drinking what's cheapest (not fashionable) and normal for their generation, and stigma is put on those drinks.

But memory is short, those drinking gin now don't associate it with mum's drink. Wonder if Port or Sherry are going to be the new it .

DH & I have just given up on wine and got into Rum.

Currently enjoying try a few flavoured/spiced ones.

There are fads & fashions in alcoholic drinks, as in everything else. Back in Ye Olden Dayes, when I worked in pubs as a student, nobody drank wine and young people certainly didn’t drink G&T, which was seen as an old person’s drink.

Younger women tended to order lager, often with blackcurrant or lime cordial, or alcopops, or Martini & lemonade. Some drank cider, but it was the normal stuff, because fruit flavoured ciders hadn’t been invented. Men drank pints or bottles of beer.

There are definitely fashions.

When I first went to university, most people would drink cider and black. By the time I left university completely (after a PhD and postdoc, so I was there a while!) I never saw anybody (undergrad or postgrad) drinking that. Most girls would have halves as well, and then go back for a second. When I left, they just ordered pints.

We used to drink Jack Daniels and coke at University. That's not that trendy now but was all the rage in the early 90s.

I met someone once (a total Pratt) and he commented on me drinking vodka and coke and said it was a proletariat drink!!

Rum, whiskey, vodka and cider are all downstairs (and Malibu, archers, tequila, brandy, in fact just not beer, pub that delivers is shut due to the no takeaway rule, they can't deliver enough to keep the business open)