Alcohol is a mood changer, pleasure of the flesh and metaphor for indulgence. It has enhanced European life, stimulated a flood of art, advertising and interior design, generated new objects from the corkscrew to the cocktail shaker and fuelled many vivid celebrations of rites of passage, victories and royal occasions over the past 500 years. From Hogarth to Scarfe, cartoonists have exploited beer and spirits as weapons in an armoury of mockery, painters...