Chesterton’s book, Heretics, offers seven reasons to drink.
- Drink because you are happy. (cf. Ecclesiastes 9:7; John 2)
- Never drink because you need it, for this is rational drinking, and the way to death and hell. (cf. I Corinthians 6:10; Proverbs 20:1; Rev. 14). Drink because you do not need it, for this is irrational drinking, and the ancient health of the world. (Ecclesiastes 8:1)
- “Wine,” says the Scripture, “maketh glad the heart of man,” but only of the man who has a heart. The thing called high spirits is possible only to the spiritual. (cf. Psalm 104)
- Jesus Christ made wine, not a medicine, but a sacrament. “Drink” he says “for the whole world is as red as this wine, with the crimson of the love and wrath of God. (cf. John 6)
- Drink, for the trumpets are blowing for battle and this is the stirrup-cup. Drink, for this my blood of the new testament that is shed for you.
- Drink, for I know of whence you come and why. Drink, for I know of when you go and where.”
- But he did not defend cocktails, and the drinks of Prohibition, which seemed to exist only for the purpose of getting drunk. “I have no objection to vodka except that I once tasted it.”His preferred drink was what the English call claret, a red Bordeaux,
Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith). Heretics (Verses annotations added)
Ahlquist, Dale. Knight of the Holy Ghost: A Short History of G.K. Chesterton . Ignatius Press. Kindle Edition.