本文来源：【The Guardian 4 Apr 2022 Children】
原为标题：
Britain’s on the rocks – no wonder we’re hitting the cocktails
冰块上的英国——难怪我们要喝鸡尾酒
With cocktails booming in popularity, it appears they may be a link between hard times and hard liquor.
随着鸡尾酒越来越受欢迎，它们似乎是困难时期和烈酒之间的联系。
【1】It is far from an exact science, taking a nation’s pulse from what it’s drinking. Cocktail sociology tends, alas, to be looked down upon by the powers that be. The field is sadly overreliant on the datasets of second-rate spiced rum brands. Still, cocktails are, apparently, selling in record numbers: they accounted for almost one-tenth of alcohol sales in bars and restaurants between April and October 2020, compared with 6% before the pandemic; and the at-home cocktail market has grown 44% year on year. Why the explosion in popularity? As someone who has spent a few negronis correlating vermouth trends with socio-economic factors, I think there are two conclusions to draw.
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从一个国家的饮酒情况中获取脉搏, 这远不是一门精确的科学。唉，鸡尾酒社会学往往被当权者看不起。遗憾的是，该领域过度依赖二流加香料的朗姆酒品牌的数据集。不过，鸡尾酒的销量显然创下了纪录：2020年4月至10月期间，鸡尾酒几乎占酒吧和餐馆酒类销售额的十分之一，而疫情前这一比例为6%；家庭鸡尾酒市场同比增长44%。为什么（鸡尾酒）人气激增？作为一个边喝着内格罗尼酒边将苦艾酒趋势与社会经济因素联系起来的人，我认为可以得出两个结论。
【2】The first is that the British will use anything as an excuse to drink: crash, plague, war, depression, we’re not fussy. At-home sales of alcohol increased by 24% in the year from March 2020. Not only did at-home drinking nearly cancel out the losses of bars and restaurants during lockdown (overall alcohol sales were only down by 1.2%), it changed what we were drinking: the five o’clock cocktail ritual became an anchor amid the amorphous days and a proxy for all the things we couldn’t do: travel, socialise, laugh. It’s also far less effort making a margarita than making sourdough. As a result, beer was down 14%; spirits were up 7.3%. Waitrose reported that pandemic tequila sales went up by 175%, with liqueur sales rising by 78%.
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首先，英国人会用任何借口喝酒：崩溃、瘟疫、战争、萧条，我们不挑剔。自2020年3月起，家庭酒精销售增长了24%。在家喝酒不仅几乎抵消了封锁期间酒吧和餐馆的损失（整体酒精销售额仅下降了1.2%），而且还改变了我们的饮酒方式：五点钟喝鸡尾酒的仪式在（疫情）无规律的日子里成为了一个锚，成为所有我们不能做的事情的代表：旅行、社交、大笑。做玛格丽塔酒比做酸面团要省力得多。结果，啤酒价格下降了14%；烈酒价格上涨7.3%。Waitrose报告称，疫情期间龙舌兰酒销量增长了175%，利口酒销量增长了78%。
【3】Now restrictions have eased, we’re seeing another mini-boom. Pubs and bars have filled once more, but now customers know precisely how much vermouth they like in their martini. AG Barr, the Scottish sugary drink manufacturer, found a 13% increase in customers ordering cocktails compared to pre-pandemic, and the trend for home mixing continues unabated. “Gin is up. Rum is up. Everything is up,” reports Dawn Davies, head buyer of the retailer the Whisky Exchange. “It’s a bit: ‘What cost of living crisis?’ ”
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现在限制放宽了，我们又看到了一次小繁荣。大小酒吧再次客满，但现在顾客（更）精确地知道自己喜欢在马提尼中加多少苦艾酒。苏格兰含糖饮料制造商AG Barr发现，与疫情前相比，订购鸡尾酒的顾客增加了13%，家庭混合的趋势继续有增无减。“杜松子酒涨价了。朗姆酒涨价了。一切都涨价了，”零售商威士忌交易所的首席买家道恩·戴维斯报道。“有个小问题：‘生活危机（下自我宽慰）的代价是什么？’”
【4】The picture is a little more complicated than that: millions cut back during the pandemic; the longer-term trend is that we are drinking less anyway; and for me at least, the move to cocktails is about drinking less but drinking better. A beer is a release after a long day; a cocktail is an event, a treat, a promise of an extravagant evening to come. Moreover we are already a couple of decades into what bartending types call the “second golden age of the cocktail” – taking the 1910s-30s as the first golden age. When I first started mixing, in 2008 or so, it was hard to find the key ingredients in non-specialist retailers. Now there is a passable crème de violette in Lidl and ready-to-drink martinis in M&S.
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情况比这要复杂一点：在疫情期间，数百万人削减开支；长期趋势是，我们无论如何都在减少饮酒；至少对我来说，改喝鸡尾酒意味着喝得更少但喝得更好。啤酒是辛苦一天之后的放松；鸡尾酒是一种活动、一种款待，是一个即将到来的奢华夜晚的承诺。此外，我们已经进入调酒师所谓的“鸡尾酒的第二个黄金时代” 几十年了——1910-30年代被视为第一个黄金时代。2008年左右，当我第一次开始调酒时，在非酒品专卖店里很难找到（调鸡尾酒的）关键成分。现在，在利德尔都能买到紫罗兰利口酒，在玛莎百货也有现成的马丁尼（指鸡尾酒比以前更加广泛化大众化）。
【5】That brings me to the second overarching trend: the affinity between hard times and hard liquor. The American drink historian David Wondrich dates the current revival to post-9/11 New York. It was in the early 2000s, as New York entered its hipster phase, that bartenders began poring over old-timey bar manuals and coming up with modern classics such as the paper plane and the French pearl. The movement really got going in Britain post financial crash, which is when the boom in craft gin distilleries began in earnest. Cocktails that were derided in the 1960s as fusty, old-fashioned things (“I will not be part of her cocktail-generation,” sang baby boomer icon Don McLean) and in the 1990s as tacky, synthetic things (this was the era of the dreaded Long Island iced tea) turn out to be the ideal accompaniments to these frightening and frivolous times. They are celebration and consolation in one.
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这让我想到了第二个总体趋势：艰难时期和烈酒之间的密切关系。美国饮料历史学家戴维·旺德里奇将这一复兴追溯到9·11之后的纽约。21世纪初，当纽约进入嬉皮士时期，调酒师们开始仔细阅读古老的酒吧手册，想出纸飞机等现代经典（鸡尾酒），还有法国珍珠。这场运动真正来到英国是在金融危机后，当时工艺杜松子酒酒厂的繁荣才真正开始。在20世纪60年代，鸡尾酒被嘲笑为陈腐、过时的东西（“我不会成为她鸡尾酒一代的一员，”婴儿潮一代的偶像唐·麦克莱恩唱道），在20世纪90年代，鸡尾酒被嘲笑为俗气、合成的东西（这是可怕的长岛冰茶时代），结果它们（居然）成为了这可怕和轻浮时代理想的伴奏。它们（对人们来说）是一种庆祝和安慰。
【6】There’s also a more specific correlation between the popularity of cocktails and economic inequality. The first high point of cocktails was in the age of the robber barons, rampant deregulation, boom and bust. The low point coincided with the postwar settlement of 1945-79 or so, when average incomes in the west rose in line with strong overall economic growth. At this point, egalitarian beer and aspirational wine were the things to drink. Cocktails hit the mainstream again only as incomes yawned apart.
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鸡尾酒的流行与经济不平等之间还有一个更具体的关联。鸡尾酒的第一个高潮出现在强盗大亨时代、猖獗的放松管制、繁荣与萧条。这一低点与1945年至1979年左右的战后和解相吻合，当时西方的平均收入随着整体经济的强劲增长而上升。在这一时期，人们常喝带有平等主义性质的啤酒，和象征雄心壮志的葡萄酒。随着收入差距的扩大，鸡尾酒再次成为主流。
【7】Will they endure? I doubt all those garden hot tubs and Peloton subscriptions will survive the cost of living crisis. But some luxuries are bomb-proof. Lipstick is one. Martinis are another. These are relatively affordable ways of escaping reality for a moment. I suspect we’ll be sinking them for a while yet.
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他们能忍受吗？我怀疑那些花园里的热水浴缸和Peloton的订阅能否在生活成本危机中生存下来。但有些奢侈品能抵御得住冲击。口红就是其中之一。马丁尼是另一种。这些都是暂时逃避现实的相对实惠的方式。我想我们会在它们中再沉溺一段时间。
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