Don’t Send Telegrams While Drunk, and Other Advice From 95 Years of Cocktail Party Etiquette Books

Shake ’em Up: A Practical Handbook of Polite Drinking by Virginia Elliott and Phil D. Stong (1930)

Ten years into Prohibition, the authors lament, “it has taken the authors twelve years to write this book — twelve years of bathtub gin, synthetic scotch, home-made wine, and needled beer.” And yet, they endure.

Elliott and Stong propose food and drink recipes tailored to specific guests and predicaments. The “Shot in the Arm” section offers drinks and snacks for “invited strangers who, you just know, will like each other — and of course, they don’t.”  

For young, inexperienced drinkers who “prefer complicated pink and creamy drinks which satisfy their beastly appetite for sweets, and at the same time offer an agreeable sense of sinfulness,” there is an Alexander and a version of the Clover Club. 

One chapter, “Bottle for a Certain Purpose,” offers scenarios such as, “for the boy who, after one drink, wants to drink all the liquor he can hold and then pour any possible surplus in his hair.” The advice? Make a decoy bottle of gin that’s mostly filled with water, and leave it in the kitchen for him to discover later in the evening. “A shot or two of Tabasco will make this even more deceptive, but leave the bottle uncorked until the peppery smell departs.” 

Bacchus Behave! The Lost Art of Polite Drinking by Alma Whitaker (1933)

Just out from under Prohibition, Los Angeles Times gossip columnist Alma Whitaker instructs hosts and guests on how to behave properly now that people could again imbibe in public. To the author, proper behavior means never being seen drunk.  

“Inform yourself conscientiously of your own capacity, and then divide by two,” Whitaker writes.

“There is apparently no subject upon which the average American is so distressingly misinformed as upon his own capacity for strong liquor. For which reason it is just as well not to risk trusting one’s own judgment. Better to believe the wife, or accept the gentle hint when the butler or waiter discreetly passes you over on the next round.” 

Being a good guest means not getting sloshed, or being a snob. But sometimes, the host, untrained in mixology, “serves inferior or erroneous liquid refreshment.” What to do?

“You may have to resort to strategy if the stuff is undrinkable. There was the case of the sensitive connoisseur who, wishing to show a nice respect for both his hostess and his own stomach, surreptitiously watered a healthy fern with his cocktail. True, the fern showed a swift and painful decline — but it was sacrificed in a good cause.”

Esquire’s Handbook for Hosts (1949)

This guide to entertaining for men, as it seems to remind you constantly, includes food and drink recipes, serving instructions, hosting tips, card games, and party tricks. It even suggests “what the well-dressed host will wear.” The book includes seven strategies to get rid of guests and advice on how to learn your limits. “The only way to determine how much you can drink of what, under any given conditions, is by experimentation. But experiment at other people’s parties!” 

To handle a messy guest: “Your object, whenever a drunken guest begins to annoy the rest of the party, is to lure the lush into a bedroom and get him to take a nap. ‘Let’s have a drink in here,’ or ‘I must speak to you alone,’ are the approaches most likely to succeed.”   

When you begin to question your sobriety, the book offers a checklist with such gems as “you think it might be fun to send a telegram to somebody.” Even in 1949, people were prone to send drunk texts.

The Commonsense Book of Drinking by Leon D. Adams (1960)

This mostly forgotten book is less about manners around alcohol and more about moderate consumption in the boozy era of Mad Men. It includes advice like, “when ordering a highball in a tavern, call for ‘a tall one,’ which means, in barroom parlance, serving the same amount of liquor in a ten-ounce glass instead of the customary seven-ounce tumbler.” 

“[The] professional [bartender] has the highest respect for the occasional customer who still orders his Martini made the old-fashioned way — two to one — instead of the straight 90-proof gin with only the whiff of vermouth that most people insist on nowadays. The former is a social drink, the latter, an anesthetic.” 

What about the guy who shows up to your party drunk? 

“The tipsy guest should be served something well diluted; and when he comes back for more, the host does well to busy himself with washing glasses, getting more ice cubes, or filling trays with food. Every device must be employed to keep the inebriated member from drinking any more. It may also be well to enlist some friends to take away his car keys and drive him home.”

The Official Preppy Handbook, edited by Lisa Birnbach (1980)

The Official Preppy Handbook, which sold well over one million copies, only offers a single cocktail recipe (a Bloody Mary), and a definition of a Gin & Tonic (“what you drink at the club before, during, and after a tennis game”). But it covers plenty of social situations that include heavy drinking. 

“You have to learn how to slide gracefully in and out of conversations. Some men, for instance, always carry a drink in each hand, one for themselves and one for a mythical friend. If they want to exit from a conversation, they run off to find the person the drink is supposedly for.”

Should you want to learn more about what to drink on those occasions, the 2004 book, Tipsy in Madras: A Complete Guide to 80s Preppy Drinking, has you covered. 

How to Be a Better Drinker: Cocktail Recipes and Boozy Etiquette by Hannah Chamberlain (2025)

Chamberlain’s drink videos are stylish and often a touch subversive, with a series dedicated to “Icons of Misbehavior” and “Weirdly Dirty Martinis.” Her tips are similarly a mix of sensible and suspect. 

The book includes advice for guests to take photos at the party, which is, according to Chamberlain, “a great way to signal to the host that they have created an event worth remembering.” It also offers reasons to show up in style. “For a guest, dressing up is doubly important. You have a sacred duty to dress up, not only for the good of the fun, but also because dressing up shows your host that you respect them and value them enough to put in extra effort.”

There are some zingers mixed in. too. For instance, at a bar, one should “keep bodily functions within a standard deviation of normal.” And what to do when a guest overdrinks at your house? “No matter how annoying they are, you have a sacred duty as a host to make sure they don’t drive home or leave with someone untrustworthy. Remember that forgiveness is divine and you can’t punish them more than their hangover already will.”