DRINKING AN OLD FASHIONED MAKES YOU SUAVE, COOL AND HANDSOME
Wouldn’t it be great if it were that easy? Look, there’s nothing wrong with knowing your classics or having a go-to drink order. Actually, it’s pretty respectable. What it isn’t, though, is a “one weird tip” trick to becoming Don Draper or Ryan Gosling.
SHAKEN, NOT STIRRED
Though James Bond is responsible for bringing us the Vesper, Ian Fleming’s super spy is better known as the progenitor of one of the most widely traveled mixological untruths: that a Martini ought to be shaken, not stirred. For the record, it shouldn’t. Without splitting too many hairs, just remember this simple rule: if it’s all spirits, it’s all stirred. A shaken Martini is over-diluted, cloudier and just plain wrong.
IT’S POSSIBLE TO WIN A DRINKING CONTEST
In real life, even if you win a drinking contest, you still lose. This myth has found its way into several other summer blockbusters, as well: Legolas turning the tables on Gimli in Lord of the Rings and Thor downing Boilermakers.
If you’ve ever seen—or participated in—a drinking contest, you know reality looks quite different. Come to think of it, the end of a marathon drinking contest doesn’t look all that different than the end of an actual marathon.
BEING A CAREER ALCOHOLIC IS CHARMING AND EASY
From Arrested Development’s Lucille Bluth to Walter Matthau in Bad News Bears and Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones, the camera has a way of making even the most desperate problem drinkers into something charming or at least comic.
FLAIRTENDING IS COOL
It never, ever was nor is.
BAR FIGHTS ARE FUN AND NO ONE IMPORTANT EVER GETS HURT
How could a dark, cramped space full of drunks throwing wild punches, chairs and bottles end badly?
There’s the quick and deadly bar fight: the iconic cantina scene in Star Wars. There’s also the knock down, drag out, two man slug fest. This is best epitomized by the back-alley brawls between Mickey Rourke (doing a solid Bukowski) and his bartender in Barfly (it’s like a whiskey-soaked version of the They Live fight).
