How to Drink in Qatar
The World Cup and its drunken fans are about to crash head-first into a repressive, restrictive society, where alcohol is illegal mostly everywhere.
drinking
A collection of 67 issues
The Art and Science of Forgetting Everything
A conversation with Sarah Hepola, author of the bestselling Blackout, about investigating the worst kind of memories—those you never had.
Union Square Sports Bar
An adventure of food and drink in San Francisco naturally expands to include Ornette Coleman, Mexican wedding cookies, and a pet monkey admiring the ocean.
HBO’s Treme Corners You at a Party
When art is staring you in the face, you can’t look away.
Three Feet by Six Feet by Three Feet
A visit to the granddaddy of Japan’s capsule hotels—with cot-sized individual spaces and shared amenities—and a lesson in different methods of getting along.
Grading the President
As President Obama enters his final days in office, a proper assessment of his tenure requires a variety of measurable, non-political categories: golf, offspring, homebrewing, and more.
The Cantina Scene
Returning to America after five years in the Middle East calls for a no-sleep jaunt back to Beirut for drinking, partying, and tying up loose ends.
Chrissy Smoked
Twice a year, a group of friends gathered in a coal-mining pocket of Pennsylvania—friends in their twenties with fragile identities, who didn’t know yet what would happen.
The Illuminated
A family that relies on the satisfactions of the logical—calculus, physics, chemistry—finds itself haunted by ghosts.
The Unofficial Roger Ebert Reader on Addiction
When Roger Ebert died, America was deprived of one of its finest critics. We also lost one of our best writers on addiction.
This God’s for You
A man and a supreme being walk into a bar. It’s a hokey joke until one day it’s true and the big man starts offering tax advice.
My Scummy Valentine
The only thing worse than Valentine's Day is a crappy Valentine's Day. A handful of TMN writers and editors dish (anonymously) on their worst dates—crying men, rugby brawls, and a dislocated sacroiliac joint.
Grandpa
Passing the summer days in North Carolina’s low country often meant sitting on the porch with Grandpa and his radio. Today, it doesn’t take much to go back there.
The Champagne of Maine
The top-selling spirit in Maine is a coffee-flavored brandy, something that could be straight out of old medicine texts. A hunt for the origins of a staple, in the northern woods and waterfronts.
Swizzle Me This
When a cocktail is born, it receives a name. How it’s christened has as much to do with the drink’s lineage as the bartender’s mood—and sometimes, how it makes you feel after you’ve finished it.
Everything in This City Must
After six months in Leipzig, a German reporter asks the novelist what he’ll miss. But it’s back here in the United States where more dangerous questions take shape, none easily answered with good beer.
Right Here Waiting
After frequenting a local haunt where nobody knows his name, a Chicago writer makes new friends, rips on Richard Marx online, and then suddenly lands a real live celebrity musician at their door.
Playing Johnny Ace
A young crooner’s untimely, macabre death left questions for those who would follow—musicians and fans alike. Was it suicide? Was it a hit? A listener's query into one star's place in the history of early rock and roll.
A Spot for Tea
It’s easy to hate Starbucks until you admit it’s responsible for nearly everything good in today’s coffee culture. Now the behemoth is poised, with a recent acquisition, to introduce America to hundreds of years of tea culture. A tea maker is grateful.
Four More Beers
One of the most striking differences between U.S. presidents is how they choose to stock the White House bar. From teetotalers to all-out drunks, a brief history of presidents and their preferred libations.
Humans Playing Humans
As “Mad Men” enters its much-anticipated fifth season, the New York psychotherapist who consulted on the show’s development explains why its characters and storylines feel so ineffably real.
Burn All the Liars
An unfinished autobiography and a 1980s biopic turned Frances Farmer, one of the great golden-era stars, into a lobotomized zombie. The main trouble: Frances Farmer wasn’t lobotomized. An investigation to set one of Hollywood’s most convoluted stories straight.
Why I Won’t Be Screeching
Life in Newfoundland is changing. Nostalgia abounds for simpler, harder times, and outsiders are required to kiss cod on the mouth. But not everyone’s drinking the rum.
Happy Misgivings
Thanksgiving is an American holiday, but that doesn’t mean it’s not celebrated elsewhere. And each of those celebrations—in Liberia, in Leiden, in the South Pacific—give us fresh reasons to be grateful for our own messed-up version.
All the Gin Joints
The deserts of Morocco are wide and golden. Trust nearly 200 American college students to track down and guzzle whatever alcohol lurks in the sands of the Islamic kingdom.
Mastering the Art of American Eating
The USDA recently replaced the almighty food pyramid with a color-coded pie chart. To celebrate our nation’s mixed metaphors about healthy eating, one man decides to spend a month attempting to follow every government recommendation he can find. Nowhere is pie advised.
Tippler, Traitor, Fumbler, Fool
America endlessly honors its best presidents. Enough with that. A demand for a federal holiday to glorify the five who rose so high, only to fail so shamefully.
Still a Terrifically Bad Idea
A morning, a bicycle, a macchiato. Or five? This time, a sensible coffee shop tour. But in the end, it still may be described in only one way.
Sunshine for a Brother
Elliott Smith died seven years ago today in Los Angeles. Though he’s remembered mythically in the East Village, it was in Brooklyn where he was happy.
American Peril
An ode to drunk shopping in New York City, regretted investments, and the transformative powers of faux-snakeskin leggings.
Preferred Patio Beverages
As the weather warms and we retreat to our patios, roofdecks, and lanais, our thirst increases. Our staff and readers share their favorite outdoor drinks.
Smiling Happily in the Evening of Life
Drawn to Denmark to observe the U.N. meeting on climate change, our man in Copenhagen is somewhat waylaid, eating blazing fire and drinking liquified koala.
Beer and Loathing
For agents and publishers, the Frankfurt Book Fair is publishing's biggest event: part conclave, mostly marathon, and all business. It is absolutely no place for an aspiring author, as we discover.
Jack & Ginger
Moving back to your hometown offers opportunities to rekindle old friendships—and start new ones. An 80-proof love story.
America on the Spree
Inspired by the local architecture and the beer-swilling, chain-smoking new parents, our man in Berlin discovers equal parts Chicago and New York in Germany's largest city.
A Terrifically Bad Idea
The plan: 10 cafés, 10 macchiatos, one morning, by bike. Embarking on an adventure that can be described in only one way.
Tattooed Drunk Diamond-Dusted Kentucky Derby Fan
Churchill Downs is like no other sports event, considering sports are barely involved. Our writer attended her first Derby last year with a family of committed fans and survived to tell the tale.
Civil Plights
Is there room for civility in Civil Rights? On the day of Obama's inauguration, facing down the moment you nearly brought President George W. Bush to task.
How to Lose Friends and Alienate Family
Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. We step in with some last-minute advice for a reader confused by a Christmas party conundrum: Do friends and family mix?
2008
From unearthed media to otherworldly technology to reflection on a personal and economic level, the year was filled with things of every shape, size, and significance. THE WRITERS give us the best of what they noted.
Hangover Cures
Robert Benchley once quipped, "The only cure for a real hangover is death." Though ultimately true, right now there are holiday parties to attend. The writers offer solutions for the morning after.
Tricks, and Beer, Are for Kids
Adding another log to the public-relations pyre where several corporations recently burned, an exclusive, damning memo from Toys’R’Us.
My SXSW Diary
South by Southwest is really about the music, so forget about all the parties and cab rides and breakfast tacos. That's exactly what our correspondent told us when she handed in her expense report. Here's what (she said) happened between the bars.
Purim vs. St. Patrick's Day
Being drunk may be fun, but being drunk and knowing the big Guy approves is even better. Matching historical fact and too much beer to decide which holiday offers the bigger hangover.
Big in Finland
Conan O'Brien's recent comedy bits about Finland earned him that country's adulation; his trip there for a one-hour special--airing tonight--sealed the deal. What the unlikely matchup means for one writer's family.
The Closest Jay Comes to a Love Song
At the rager the chicks come and go, talking about art or something. In time for a hundred hip-hop-hoorays, a frat-boy adapation of T.S. Eliot’s “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”
For Spring 2005
The stuff we're into right now--including what we're reading, hearing, watching, finding, eating, using, installing, applying, and, yes, even scratching this season.
New Ways to Lose Your Lunch
Everybody barfs. But it’s an altogether different product depending on if you’re an infant or the last one standing at tequila happy hour.
For Fall 2004
Books, movies, shows, albums, artists, clothing, writing instruments, online "services," ways to cook, things to eat, and more things to digest.
For Summer 2004
Of interest lately are special books, catchy songs, lovely clothes, and a slew of other wonderful items we've collectively enjoyed the last few weeks, and now wish to pass along for your very own summer pleasure.
This Year, It's Gonna Be Different
Perhaps the only joy in making new year's resolutions is the variety of ice cream flavors it takes to break them.
How to Cook Thanksgiving Dinner
You’ve got less than two days to prepare Thanksgiving dinner. Is the menu set? Do you have a cooking timetable ready? Uh oh. Sage advice for those whose stuffing isn’t quite ready for prime time.
How to Carve a Pumpkin
It's nearly Halloween, time for ghosts, treats, and hours of time invested in what invariably winds up splattered down your block. Yes: the season-o-Jack. Here's how to cut your gourd.
Recipes for a Blackout
The Blackout of 2003 will certainly cost the country loads of money, but the condiment industry couldn't be happier. What to do with all those eggs when the lights go out.
The Key to a Successful Freelance Career: A Diary
As more people work at home and telecommute, you can bet that the The View is expanding its influence.
Forever and a Day: Songs for Summertime
After a weekend of heavy research, our summer expert gives us his survey of music for surviving the heat, and your drunk friends.
A Good Day To Be Alive
A conversation about life as a wino, the effects of war, heroin, Shiner, marriage and pornography, horseplay and jail, and the amount of muscles it takes to frown, between William and Sarah Hepola.
Starfucker
Meeting and interviewing (and yes, dating) the stars proves tiresome for even the most well-seasoned of celebrity-worshippers. The life of lies and junkets, however, makes for the best party conversation.
Santa's Not-So-Little Helper
You know Santa: cheeks like a rose, nose like a cherry. Now meet the Krampus, a boozy, goat-horned menace that whips European children during the first days of December.
Socializing
Why is that woman next to you gasping? Oh, dear. You seem to be stepping on her toes. You didn’t even notice, did you?
I Know You're Lonely for Words That I Ain't Spoken
Most people know that Bruce Springsteen has a new album out. But everyone knows that a man, shouting at Springsteen, partly inspired the new songs.
The Nights of Malta
It's an acquired taste. It's a strange delicacy. It's a "non-alcoholic cereal beverage."
Hotel Bars in the City
New Yorkers treat drinking like exercise: done frequently, in the company of friends, and one's life becomes better. But where to go when you're tired of the neighborhood dive? We seek out the best of the best: old hotels in Manhattan.
What Are You, Drunk?
A new study on binge drinking from the Harvard School of Public Health slides off the stool, falls down, and admits that it really didn't know what it was talking about earlier, with all that "research" business.
The Case for Cocktails
Fifty years ago, men ordered Manhattans, women drank Mai Tais, and no one brought guns to school. The logic is irrefutable.
The Morning News Guide to Urban Etiquette: New York City
You'd be surprised at what you'll see people do in New York. Or maybe you wouldn't. But maybe you should. A guide to everyone who lives in New York, whether there for an hour or for a lifetime.
The Morning News Guide to New York
Summer is tourist season in New York City and maybe you're one of them, on a visit to the city, unsure of where to go. Maybe you have recommendations from friends, maybe relatives have ideas for where to go; don't trust them. Trust us.