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Dear Brian In one of the biographies there is a reference to Ruddy at the table after dinner getting voluble over the brandy and being packed off to bed by Carrie, but generally there are very few references to his drinking that I can remember reading, so Neil Pendock's comment seems surprising. In putting together the New Readers' Guide we have noted 51 stories in which food or drink figure in the works, but most of these are to do with food rather than drink (see the on-line Themes Database). The most lyrical description of drinking that I know occurs in "The Bull that Thought" (Debits and Credits) when the narrator sits late over dinner with M. Voiron: The proprietor presently invited me to the dining-room, where, beneath one frugal light, a table had been set with local dishes of renown. There was, too, a bottle beyond most known sizes, marked black on red, with a date. Monsieur Voiron opened it, and we drank to the health of my car. The velvety, perfumed liquor, between fawn and topaz, neither too sweet nor too dry, creamed in its generous glass. But I knew no wine composed of the whispers of angels' wings, the breath of Eden and the foam and pulse of Youth renewed. So I asked what it might be. 'It is champagne,' he said gravely. 'Then what have I been drinking all my life?' 'If you were lucky, before the War, and paid thirty shillings a bottle, it is possible you may have drunk one of our better-class tisanes.' There is also the account in "Wireless" in Traffics and Discoveries of the drink the narrator makes for Mr Cashell: I explored many of the glass-knobbed drawers that lined the walls, tasted some disconcerting drugs, and, by the aid of a few cardamoms, ground ginger, chloric-ether, and dilute alcohol, manufactured a new and wildish drink, of which I bore a glassful to young Mr. Cashell, busy in the back office. And there is also the draught prepared by Nick Culpeper in "A Doctor of Mediicine" Rewards and Fairies in the plague-struck village: I drenched him then and there with a half-cup of waters, which I do not say cure the plague, but are excellent against heaviness of the spirits.' 'What were they?' said Dan. 'White brandy rectified, camphor, cardamoms, ginger, two sorts of pepper, and aniseed.' 'Whew!' said Puck. 'Waters you call 'em!' But I don't think any of this is evidence that RK was a boozer ! All good wishes, John R