Now read that paragraph again, but substitute the words "drink" and "beer" with the term "adult beverage":
"Last night I went for an adult beverage. On Saturday afternoon I sat down, having spent most of the day house hunting, and had an adult beverage. On Sunday I served adult beverages to a steady stream of visitors to the Starr Hill Brewing Company. This weekend, I might go for an adult beverage or I might not. Safe to say though I enjoy going for or having an adult beverage".
Ridiculous isn't it? The fact that I bought a beer in a pub in a country where you get asked for ID if you have less than 45% gray hair coverage kind of suggests I qualify for the legal definition of an adult. On top of that, the cultural convention of both my home country and the country in which I live is that "going for a drink" suggests "going for alcohol", I am yet to meet anyone who when asked that most convivial of questions "fancy a drink?" has reacted with glee at the thought of going to a diner for a milkshake.
Quite where this daft term has come from is beyond me, though perhaps if I am being cynical it is an attempt to put the drinking of beer, wine and spirits on a moral par with buying girly mags and having an interest in sex that goes beyond procreation and the missionary position. To put it another way, calling beer an "adult beverage" is to equate it with an immoral lifestyle. What's next? Are pubs and restaurants going to have to re-brand as "adult beverage emporia", complete with the frosted windows of a bookmakers in order to protect the innocent from seeing what goes on in such dens of iniquity? Will breweries, wineries and distilleries suddenly become "adult beverage factories"? Will the drunk sat on the park bench become an "adult beverage addict"?
I can kind of see the messed up logic behind the term, after all you have to be an adult in order to purchase beer, even if the definition of "adult" means you can die on the battlefield at 18 but you can't enjoy a case of beer if you survive said battlefield. Having a comprehensible logic though doesn't make the term useful in any meaningful sense.
To put it bluntly. Beer? Yes. Wine? Sure. Whisky? You bet. Adult beverage? Bugger off.
I don't understand. Who is using, or forcing other people to use, the term?
ReplyDeleteAnd you've been away too long Al. Bookies are all look in and see now.
ReplyDeleteTBN,
ReplyDeleteYou quite often hear the term on the TV over here.
Apparently the term was coined by Rush Limbaugh (which is reason enough to find it offensive in itself) in order to avoid offending mothers with young children listening to his show. Quite why a mother with young children would listen to the vile drivel he spouts anyway is beyond me, though I guess after this week he mother and children audience has dropped slightly.
Tandleman,
No wonder Blighty is going to the dogs! All that moral turpitude!! ;)
Make mine a pint of Moral Turpitude. I was wondering what I was going to call my next batch of beer
DeleteTed,
ReplyDeleteConsidering you don't (I assume) bottle your brews, do you have naming issues with the TTB?
I don't need to apply for a C.O.L.A. (Certificate of Label Approval) from the T.T.B. unless my adult beverage goes in a bottle or is "packaged" for distribution to the public, as far as I understand it. I can't imagine the black sedan with a pair of suits coming in to examine my pump clips.
ReplyDeleteI think I have enough scruples not to resort to the "Randy Otter" or "Santa's Sack" sort of rubbish that you see on Pump Clip Parade. And thanks to poor old Hardknott Dave, I now know not to use the word "tonic".