The Rush To Drink
The six o'clock closing time was introduced partly in an attempt to improve public morals and get men home to their wives earlier. Instead, it often fuelled an hour-long speed-drinking session, as men raced to get as drunk as possible in the limited time available. An unintended consequence was that glasses were saved during the hour after quitting time until the last call came for drinks. Then, the emptied glasses could be refilled. "The bartender didn't carry your glass to the tap. He carried a pistol-shaped spigot hitched to a long tube and squirted your glass full where you stood."
Read more about this topic: Six O'clock Swill
Famous quotes containing the words rush and/or drink:
“As it grew darker, I was startled by the honking of geese flying low over the woods, like weary travellers getting in late from Southern lakes, and indulging at last in unrestrained complaint and mutual consolation. Standing at my door, I could hear the rush of their wings; when, driving toward my house, they suddenly spied my light, and with hushed clamor wheeled and settled in the pond. So I came in, and shut the door, and passed my first spring night in the woods.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“At the punch-bowl’s brink,
Let the thirsty think,
What they say in Japan:
First the man takes a drink,
Then the drink takes a drink,
Then the drink takes the man!”
—Edward Rowland Sill (1841–1887)