"Drink: A Social History of America," by Andrew Barr. Carroll & Graf. 466 pages. $27.95.

People who like a drink (and in the interest of full disclosure, I am one of them) draw great satisfaction from the occasional reports that drink is good for the heart, for the circulation, for the mind and other vital functions.

Andrew Barr, an Englishman, has given us a whole book in support of the great news.

Moreover, he's gone after some of the fundamental preachings of the land's abiding anti-booze establishment and its great acronymns: AA and MADD. He says it's not true that an alcoholic can never take so much as a sip of alcohol without falling into utter disrepair. He argues that constantly reducing the blood-alcohol level for legal driving will not serve the ultimate ambitions of MADD. He suggests that MADD's real ambition is just to keep alive a lobbying organization.

Temperance? We don't even know the meaning of the word.

"The term 'temperance' properly means moderation: It refers to the argument that people should consume alcoholic drinks only of moderate strength or in moderate quantities, but its meaning has been perverted to designate campaigners who have advocated abstention from all forms of alcohol."

In the same breath, of course, Barr asserts that "(M)any Americans find themselves unable to distinguish between moderate and immoderate consumption of alcohol." So, if we can't make that distinction, then the proper definition of temperance may not matter.

Barr tells us this book "is history, but it is also polemic."

Plenty of Americans will want to hurl it into the trash because the polemic infuriates them. But they will miss the rich and extraordinarily well-researched history that takes a reader through the American drinking experience from Madiera wine in colonial times, to martinis today and all that grand and ugly stuff that's come in between: rum, beer, brandy, claret, local wine, cider, beer, whiskey, more beer, punches, slings, toddies and flips, better and better beer and better and better wine.

There are phenomenal characters in this book, some very well known for their passion for drink, like George Washington; some less well known, like John Rutledge, the first governor of South Carolina, who "was accustomed to drink two quart bottles of Madiera a day, a habit in which he took a great deal of pride."

And there are wonderful nuggets of information. For example, one of the most delightful remarks ever made about the martini came from Dorothy Parker: "I like to have a martini, two at the most. After three I'm under the table, after four I'm under my host."

Barr does not mention Parker's lines, but those who think they were original will be interested in Barr's selection from the Talmud on why women shouldn't drink too much: "One glass of wine is becoming to a woman, two are somewhat degrading, and if she has three glasses she solicits coitus, but if she has four, she solicits even an ass in the street and forgets all decency."

Beer is the American drink. But most American beer is awful, says Barr, and it's a good thing it's served so cold no one can really taste it. Wine's the stuff Americans should be drinking, he says. And they should start drinking it at an early age under the supervision of their parents so they won't grow up to be the sort of binge drinkers that are trashing America's college dorms and frat houses.

Wine, moreover, is not the sort of drink one guzzles, Barr notes. He is right about this. Barr's a snob, though. He suggests Americans order merlot because cabernet sauvignon is too difficult to pronounce. In any case, Americans are not likely to become a wine-drinking nation, he says, because wine takes time and Americans do not want to take the time.

"Wine has never become an integral element of the American diet because it has long been a national habit to rush through one's meals and to regard the enjoyment of leisurely meals accompanied by wine as an elitist and un-American activity, as a waste of time that could be better spent working."

This book is probably too long and too repetitive. How many times, for example, do we need to be reminded that most Americans judge the quality of wine by its price? But this is an entertaining book, full of the sort of drink-trivia that delights people who like to drink.

Some will even find the book makes them proud to be un-American.

G. Jefferson Price III has been foreign editor of The Sun since 1991, state editor before that, and foreign correspondent in the Middle East 1982-1987 and 1973-1975. He worked in Hong Kong in 1967-1969 for the Associated Press. He has been with The Sun for 30 years. Price had his first taste of wine at the age of 5 at a boarding school on the North Sea coast of Belgium.

Pub Date: 03/14/99