Most of the names for people who like to have an alcoholic drink seem a bit too pejorative for my liking. Leaving out ALCOHOLIC as sufferers of a disease*, other phrases still have the nutella of disapproval spread all over them. HEAVY DRINKER seems tainted by Heavy Smoker (and look at the first picture you get when you put “Heavy Drinker” into Google Image Search). BOOZER rhymes with Loser. WINE SNOB / WINE TASTER / MEMBER OF A WINE APPRECIATION SOCIETY – all seem pretty keen on the wine aspect. And Snob and Taster both put a negative spin on what they are actually doing, guzzling bottles of wine by the pint. Swop BEER in for any of those occurrences of wine and the problem remains. Put the word ALCOHOL in again and you are back to the problem of alcoholic. And it isn’t the taste of the alcohol that I am keen on anyway. It is the nice drink + slight inebriation + social interaction I am after.
SOCIAL DRINKER comes close, but I always think it sounds a bit defensive. “I am a social drinker” = I only drink when I am hanging out with my alcoholic mates. And it also suggests there is little of worth in the drink itself that it needs to be coupled with company. BOOZEHOUND I rather like, though it again seems a bit aggressive, as if I snap my jaws on any passing jar of meths that comes to hand. Damnit, we need a proper phrase a proper name for those of us who like to drink.
So may I offer DRINKOPHILE up. Or BOOZOPHILE? Neither are ideal, but its a start. Any ideas?
*And it is a disease, like chicken pox, which you can catch and everything.