Top 10 Drinkers Throughout History
- May 1, 2015
- 5 min read
By Gerry Flynn
Every generation is convinced that theirs is the craziest, or that they themselves are the bold pioneers of boundary pushing lunacy. But the sad truth is that however big your weekend was, history renders you about as fun as a glass of cranberry juice at a village fete. Alcohol has been around a long time and though the delivery methods may have changed greatly since its inception, the quest for inebriation and the battle against sobriety has been raging for longer than you’ve had a heartbeat. In that time the world has born witness to some heroic livers and hedonistic lives that are worth raising a glass to.
1) Lord Byron
Mad, bad, dangerous to know, and notorious for drinking from a human skull; Byron, famed for his poetry, allegations of incest and sexual exploits that make Russell Brand look like a pimple-faced virgin trying to put a condom on a cucumber. Byron remains to this day an icon of excess. He drank and screwed his way across the world, nearly led the Greeks into battle against the Ottoman Empire and documented his lewd conquests with such eloquence that schools are now forced to teach the ramblings of a drug and drink-addled nymphomaniac in their curriculums.
2) Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon
Life at the top is tough, especially when you’re presiding over a crumbling empire of belligerent cynics for 101 years. Dubbed by Hitler as “the most dangerous woman in Europe,” the Queen’s mother managed to plough through in excess of 70 units a week which must have kept her blue blood topped up with the alcoholic extravagance that peasants like me can only dream of.
3) Josef Stalin
Josef “Life and Soul” Stalin, whose party trick was having your children inform on you for political deviancy and then quaffing vodka to the melody of the firing squad. Notable accolades include having more people put to death than any singular human in recorded history and out-drinking almost anyone he met. Operation Bracelet saw British booze-hound Winston Churchill meet Stalin at a banquet where the two forged an alliance over an unconscionable number of vodkas, which ultimately led to the fall of the Nazis, which sort of dwarfs whatever you did last Friday night. Stalin – the dark side of the hard drinkers of history.
4) Tony Adams
Living most schoolboy dreams of being signed for Arsenal football club at the tender age of 17, Adams is the classic example of too much too young and is often forgotten in light of George Best’s drunken sportsman reputation. Still, Adams managed to play through a whole match drunk in 1993, crashed his car into a brick wall, is arrested, released and instantly gets back on it. Upon being released from a 4 months sentence, Adams goes on a bender that leads to his head being stitched back together after a fight with gravity and some shit-talking stairs before firing a flair gun into the disabled toilet at Pizza Hut in Horncastle. He’s since sought to help those battling alcohol-addiction, but his are the memories that one cannot acquire on water alone.
5) Dylan Thomas
A transient wonder to behold, presumably smelling like a questionable puddle in a Swansea car park on any given weeknight, the inherent genius of Thomas was only matched by his love for whiskey. The embodiment of a struggling poet, Dylan Thomas’ death is shrouded in the whiskey fumes of mystery as to the true cause. Whether through the fumbling hands of his doctor, the tireless work on his poetry or his overworked liver – the man definitely knew how to put whiskey and words to use in a wonderful blend of genius.
6) Vincent Van Gogh
Everybody’s favourite one-eared artist dabbled, arguably dabbling too hard in the end, but ultimate sacrifices have to be made in the name of art. Twisting his mind with the sugar-syrup viscosity of absinthe, the Dutch painter has crafted many of the best loved paintings whilst losing his mind over a glass of green fairy with a slice of ear.
7) Cleopatra VII
Never let anyone tell you it’s not ladylike to get utterly rat-arsed, if it’s good enough for the last Pharaoh of Egypt then it’s probably good enough for you, you arrogant self-righteous turd. If I were the last active ruler of a dynasty that spanned generations, I’d probably want to submerge myself in wine or whatever else came to hand in a bid to rid myself of the untold horror that accompanies being the end of the line. Her decadent lifestyle invariably came at the price of the well-being of her subjects and whilst countless Egyptians toiled and died under the sun, Cleopatra was busy having a pearl dissolved into her wine in order to win a bet.
8) Hunter S. Thompson
If ever evidence need be put forth to suggest that we as a species have come so far not through our brains, nor through opposable thumbs, but by being the craziest motherf**kers in the jungle, then Hunter was proof enough. A true icon in his own right, Thompson was an aficionado of all mind altering goodness, not least Chivas Regal and Wild Turkey bourbon. Too weird to live, too rare to die, Hunter eventually took his own life, as many of the people on this list did, but what a life it had been; one riddled with beatings, gunfire, reckless behaviour and all the makings of a good night out.
9) Ernest Hemingway
You may start to notice a growing number of writers featuring in this list, perhaps it’s this author’s bias seeping into the page, perhaps it just goes with the literary territory, but nevertheless some of the world’s most notable drinkers have been known to dabble with words as well as the bottle. Popularising the Mojito, penning American classics and breaking many a heart in the process, Hemingway was most probably something of an ass judging by his tumultuous relations with women, editors and critics, but you’d still want to prop up the bar with him on account of the sheer audacity of the bastard.
10) Frank Sinatra
“I feel sorry for people who don’t drink. They wake up in the morning and that’s as good as they’re going to feel all day.” With words like this what more needs be said about the classic entertainment all-star whose wild nights inspired a generation to cast caution and dignity to the wind in order to do it their way; even if that way means waking up in a puddle of your own excrement with a tattoo that symbolises bestiality in Mandarin...
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