HEY, MAYBE I SHOULD QUERY THESE GUYS: Jeremy Lott looks at Modern Drunkard magazine:
Readers soon learned that, though they are usually happy drunks, the staff of Modern Drunkard Magazine are dead serious about their booze. In fact, that they were denied entry to the Absolut Vodka party at this year’s Bar and Nightclub Convention. Shown the door on the hilarious grounds that they were promoting drunkenness, the Drunkards retaliated by passing out hundreds of copies to people going into the melee. Though the guards tried to confiscate the issues, they finally gave up “when a growing group of hasslees started wondering why the literature they were carrying was any of Absolut’s business.”
This orneriness — this refusal to be cowed by convention or moderation — is one of the things that makes this magazine so fascinating. When the Drunkards give readers tips on how to beat an intervention, or take aim at the latest anti-alcohol “propaganda,” or enlist the lubricious exuberance of some of America’s founders (“dedicated, rampant boozers”) in the service of tying one on, they are merrily trampling on all sorts of cherished American taboos.
Given the rise of the New Puritans of the left, Modern Drunkard’s timing as a counterforce looks impeccable.
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