So the Government say that they will abolish our time honoured bizarre rules on drinks measures to tackle BINGE DRINK BRITAIN. It will make it easier to serve people in the smaller glasses THEY DEMAND despite there being little call for such a measure (see what I did there). Everyone knows that the time honoured tradition of serving in measures of a pint, half pint or third of a pint was designed by GOD himself to make the mead floweth more readily. Do we really want to live in the confusing Australian world of pots and sevens?
So now we will now be allowed to get Schooners, an Australian measured which has been lobbied for by, I don’t know, the odd Walkabout pub. Wine will now be available in a dazzling array of glass sizes, and still underpoured in each. Finally the flight of wine that Heston serves on his nine course meal will be legal. That little taster they give you in your local half decent real ale pub finally becomes less of a hanging offence. These things are all good. But I went on a day course to learn that ALL SPIRITS must be served in multiples of 25ml and thus cocktail culture in the UK has been stunted ever more.
How making it easier to make cocktails properly will tackle BINGE DRINK BRITAIN I don’t know. But I for one will be ripping up my British Institute of Innkeepers certificate on the way to the pub.