Author Topic: What age for alcohol?  (Read 6987 times)

hellymedic

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What age for alcohol?
« on: 15 December, 2017, 06:29:21 pm »
Apparently kids are being given booze too young.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-42353206

When I was a kid, we regularly had cider with meals and at celebrations.

I probably imbibe less alcohol now than I did when I was eight.

I currently have one or two drinks per month so am possibly unrepresentative of the populous.

What thinks the panel?

Re: What age for alcohol?
« Reply #1 on: 15 December, 2017, 10:55:08 pm »
I can't remember *not* being allowed wine with a meal, albeit so heavily watered that it barely coloured the glass. Beer came much later. (Actually, only after legal drinking age in the company of my parents, though a littleconsiderably earlier in pubs.)

I think my parents were, though, a little nonplussed when we stayed with an old friend of my parents whose new husband was a gentleman of the old school. He had opened something quite fine to have with our meal - 25 year old claret or something similar - and quite naturally poured me a glass, albeit a small one. He was taken aback when my parents said I would have it watered down, though eventually conceded that I could have a glass of water to accompany it.

I was six.

I don't think I enjoyed it, really - in retrospect, it was the idea of drinking 'wine,' just like the grownups, that I liked.

(And, obvioushly, it'sh never done me any harm. Hic.)

Kim

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Re: What age for alcohol?
« Reply #2 on: 15 December, 2017, 11:16:17 pm »
I never saw the attraction of the stuff.  I'm currently 37.


ETA: No I'm not, I'm 38   :facepalm:

Re: What age for alcohol?
« Reply #3 on: 18 December, 2017, 11:24:46 am »
My Great Grandmother would give us port and lemonade when we were five or six, doubt there was much port in though just enough to urn the lemonade pink.
Sunday dinners we were sometimes allowed a glass of cider, a normal water glass so I guess a third of a pint or less when we were 10 or 11.
Wine and beer didn't enter into it until we were 16 but there again my parents didnt really drink at home unless they were having some kind of party.
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.

Re: What age for alcohol?
« Reply #4 on: 18 December, 2017, 12:26:12 pm »
Probably not until I was in my early teens. We always went on holiday to France and every lunch time me and my sister were allowed a small glass of cheap fizz. I used to love it.

I've struggled with alcoholism all my adult life* whereas my sister hardly drinks at all.

*Scratch that, I was bunking off school to go down the offy when I was about 16, so since childhood....

Those wonderful norks are never far from my thoughts, oh yeah!

BrianI

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Re: What age for alcohol?
« Reply #5 on: 18 December, 2017, 04:03:52 pm »
I never saw the attraction of the stuff.  I'm currently 37.


ETA: No I'm not, I'm 38   :facepalm:

Me  neither (and I'm 40) Never had a drink of alcohol at all. Not sure if that's a weird thing or not.  But it certainly makes for a boring works night out, seeing colleagues getting drunk and bitching about management..  ::-) No wonder I left not long after the meal.... 

Re: What age for alcohol?
« Reply #6 on: 18 December, 2017, 05:26:11 pm »
I never saw the attraction of the stuff.  I'm currently 37.


ETA: No I'm not, I'm 38   :facepalm:

Me  neither (and I'm 40) Never had a drink of alcohol at all. Not sure if that's a weird thing or not.  But it certainly makes for a boring works night out, seeing colleagues getting drunk and bitching about management..  ::-) No wonder I left not long after the meal....

And I'm another (now 36) was offered beer and wine from about 14 upwards but only if parents were drinking. My whole time at Uni was dry which lead to some quiet nights. I have subsequently found that I can happily drink Cointreau and single malt Scotch but it will be one small measure in an evening.

Cudzoziemiec

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Re: What age for alcohol?
« Reply #7 on: 18 December, 2017, 11:44:53 pm »
Hey, I gave my son vodka when he was 2. It was a wedding (in Poland, Mrs Cudzo's brother, so lots of vodka). He sees all these people drinking this colourless liquid which nevertheless isn't water. Obviously, he wants some too. It must be good, he can see how all his uncles and aunts and other big people are drinking it. No, that's only for grown ups, you can have some juice. Want want want! So eventually I stuck my finger in the vodka and gave him a taste. After that he didn't want any.

TBH I don't like vodka either. I'd far rather have wine or beer. Or juice.
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Re: What age for alcohol?
« Reply #8 on: 19 December, 2017, 12:34:05 am »
Heh. Reminds me of a family holiday when I was probably 12 or 14. We'd been in France, were making our way back, circuitously, to the ferry at Zeebrugge.

Went to a restaurant for dinner before our final night in a hotel, and were served a starter of smoked and cured fish, complete with glass of colourless liquid in the centre of the plate. "What might this be?", pondered my parents and grandmother. "Tcha, it'll be water, to cleanse the palate," pronounced the callow youth, and proceeded to take a swig.

Genever. S'pose that was one way of cleansing the palate.

(I still like that idea, though it's remarkably difficult to get hold of genever in the UK, at least from real bricks'n'mortar shops. The dish left me with an abiding taste for smoked eel though.)