Guinness and cider with a dash of black current was locally known as "Hooligan Soup", but only a few of us drank it regularly.

Saying that, I think the official adult beverage would be described as "anything alcoholic we can afford in volume".

I was in Cyprs a couple of months back and had a kebab in Sylvanna'sfor old times sake.

I got chatting to one of the men behind the bar as I was the only customer about how times have changed. He said he used to get through 1,000 - 1,200 bottles of Kokinelli a month. Now he is lucky to sell 10 bottles a month.

November, therein lies the difference. He now SELLS it, IIRC it used to be used instead of water :)

It was indeed PN. And a rather salty kebab encouraged one to quaff several karafes of the stuff. Which was fine until one went to rise from the table!

Close on four decades ago, during my helicopter training, I got into home brewing and soon developed my own special recipe for bitter beer. It was strong to say the least, but deceptively so.

We held a party at my MQ and after some initial hesitation from some beer snobs, my fairly large stock of home brew was very quickly depleted, in preference to the stocks of commercially brewed stuff, which guests brought along.

The next morning it became obvious that due to the effects of the home brew, some hadn't quite made it home. One particular officer only got as far as our front lawn, where he had slept. He was our next door neighbour!

In days gone by I believe that the drinks of choice were G&T for the Army, Horse's necks for the Navy and Beer for the R.A.F.
At Benson in the 60's I, as most, attempted home brewing in the airing cupboard until Mrs. M protested that the babies' nappies smelt like barmaid's aprons. (A distinct improvement in some instances). There was one pilot called Mark W**** who did achieve a fantastic result with his home brew and the maturing of another barrel was eagerly awaited. We all declared that he would always have a second string to his bow if piloting became a bore. As it transpired he opened Archer's brewery in Swindon on retirement and poly pins of his amber nectar graced many a barbie, housewarming, or anything convivial, for years. Eventually a restaurant group bought up the brewery on the railway shunting yards of the Great Western but they had the foresight to engage Mark to work for them in a micro brewery at the back of the Weighbridge restaurant. He can be seen like a mad scientist behind the glass wall amongst the copper tuns as the "home brew" saga continues.

RAF Luqa - 1970's - best Brandy Sours ever

Seconded, No 2_Mess, glass frosted with sugar.

AFAIK there has been no mention of the drinking 'game' 7-14-21, which can be amusing - if you are just sitting in the bar watching the players.

ValMorna, a killer in the tropics was double coke without ice. One player paid, drank, chose, paid and drank and four warm cokes did him for the night - one NCHD and the b*gger didnt look a day older 50 years on.

P.N.


Selection: "One of everything in the optics."

ValM, in our case it was 'behind the bar'

The bar sold toothpaste too :)

7-14-21
 

I was first introduced to 7-14-21 at some pongo mess in BAOR during our RAFC visit back in 1969:

Any number of players.
1 set of poker dice.
Throw dice in turn.
Player who throws the 7th ace chooses a drink - it can be as vile as imagination allows. But with that comes a risk...
Player who throws the 14th ace has to pay for the drink (during our BAOR visit, the pongos were gentlemanly enough to charge the cost to 'mess guests' if one of us threw the 14th)
Player who throws the 21st ace has to drink the concoction which the 7th ace thrower chose. Of course that could be the same player, so if he'd chosen something like Guinness, advocat and pernod, then he'd have to drink it!

Throw the 21st 3 times in a row and you'd have to drink the 'loving cup' - consisting of anything everyone else chose.

Later the game was adopted in the ULAS mess at White Waltham, although to keep the cost down, there were set rules. No more than 2 spirits, nothing more than half a pint in total and the only permitted additives were 'recognised' items such as angostura bitters, Lea & Perrins etc. Innocents that we were, we would then go flying the following morning feeling like death.

But we survived....

I'm sure the RAF would give a fine account of itself in any inter-service drinking competition, but I once made the mistake of going out for a pint some time back in the 80s with a seasoned RN stoker, and to this day I question what I witnessed - his ability to consume beer was, well, not of this world. He would buy 3 pints for the 2 of us and drink the first at the bar while the next 2 were being pulled, he would then arrive at the table having drunk most of the second during the walk over. Standing my corner was almost impossible, I would say he drank somewhere between 16 and 20 pints in about an hour and a half and he didn't even seem tipsy.

PN - a stude on out Towers entry was Pakistani and Muslim, so did not drink alcohol. On his 21st birthday he therefore offered to drink a yard of coca cola- slowest "down" and fastest "back up" I have ever seen

My favourite description of a hard drinker is... he was as drunk as a Glaswegian three badge stoker, celebrating New Years Eve in Macau'!

I cannot imagine why a three badge stoker would go to Macau to celebrate New Year.

FED, may be start 31 Dec and continue until Chinese NY?

I been to Macau a few times. After 20.00hrs or so I'm over the border and into Zhuhai. Macau is only interested in gamblers.

The description came from book written by IIRC, Nicholas Monserrat. It was in the 50's so probably a bit different then FED
I do like PNs explanation though!