Quantum of Drink

Poets and preachers alike were earnestly advised to seek inspiration in a bottle or glass. This is one of the historic songs on the classic album The Tale of Ale:

Ye poets who pray on the Hellican brooke
The nectar of Gods and the juice of the vine,
You say none can write well except they invoke
The friendly assistance of one of the Nine.
His liquor surpassed the streams of Parnassus
That nectar, Ambrosia, on which Gods regale
Experience will show it, naught makes a good poet
Like quantum sufficients of Nottingham Ale.

You bishops and curates, priests, deacons and vicars
When once you have tasted, you all must agree
That Nottingham Ale is the best of all liquors
And none understands a good creature like thee.
It dispels every vapor, saves pen, ink and paper
For when you`ve a mind in your pulpit to rail
It`ll open your throats, you may preach without notes
When inspired with a bumper of Nottingham Ale.

There is an element of hyperbole in the song but it prompted me to think about the affect of particular drinks on the mind and temperament.

A single glass to help speed creative thought seems modest enough, but keeping it single is the challenge. The point is reached where ideas become wackier, characters’ motivations become less consistent, and dialogue becomes flatter. The balance between the inner voice of characters or of a storyteller, and the weird thoughts we always have fizzing around our heads somewhere (else we wouldn’t be attempting to create anything at all), becomes more elusive. It’s that old dichotomy between control and fantasy.

If the inspiration flies a little fleeter as a glass goes down, this begs one question. Is this solitary drinking?

The conclusion I have come to is that the first drink is not. The second and third may well be. As long as the characters are still there with the writer, clearly audible, then no. But once they  go, then it’s another matter.

 The heavy brownness of bitter, usually bottled when drunk at home, is quite quick at drowning them out. And yet in company, at the pub, it opens up the questions that lead to good exploratory conversations. Beer is an unselfish drink, perhaps? It's significant, I think, that the key quality of a good bitter is balance – the malty and hoppy and indeed the fruity, all in balance.

Whereas – keeping to traditional English drinks for now – cider provides that jolt of physical energy that makes it an ideal labourer’s tipple. The other day I did quite a lot of wooding – sawing and splitting logs – and cider seemed to help me get through it. And yet there is an affect on articulacy. Not a writer’s drink.

Wine or spirits are perhaps the best drink to help the words flow. As Churchill said:  ‘A single glass of champagne imparts a feeling of exhilaration. The nerves are braced, the imagination is agreeably stirred; the wits become more nimble. A bottle produces the contrary effect. Excess causes a comatose insensibility. So it is with war: and the quality of both is best discovered by sipping.’

There are Champagnes amongst beers. These are perhaps the perfect drinks. Bodger’s barley wine. Lodz porter, a Polish beer very hard to find even in Poland, let alone here, and probably one I will have to write about separately...

A craft Champagne maker I met a few years back. 

Lodz Porter from Poland