See Also: EATING AND DRINKING, FOOD AND DRINK

1. Alcohol is like love. The first kiss is magic, the second is intimate, the third is routine —Raymond Chandler
2. A case of beer lying at his feet like the family dog —Jonathan Valin
3. Drank like a camel —Robert Graves
4. Drank like a fire engine —Ernest William Hornung
5. Drink like a fish —Anon

   There’s a whole laundry list of “Drink like” and “Drunk as” similes. Those linking drinking with fish predominate with “Drunk as a lord” and “Drunk as owls” or “Boiled as owls” following close on the fishes’ fins. A nice twist by Mary Peterson Poole: “It’s all right to drink like a fish, if you drink what a fish drinks.”

6. (He could) drink like a suction-hose —Thomas Burke
7. Drinks cognac like soda water —Isaac Bashevis Singer
8. Drunk as a cooter brown —Richard Ford
9. Drunk as an autumn wasp —Jonathan Gash
10. Drunk as a wheelbarrow —George Garrett
11. Drunk as dancing pigs —James Crumley
12. Drunk as puffed-up pigeons —Edward Hoagland
13. Drunk like wedding guests —Charles Simic
14. Feel the vodka melting into his bloodstream, like snow —Richard Lourie
15. Half as sober as a judge —Charles Lamb
16. Lit up like a Christmas tree —Anon

    Similes linking “Lit up” with a variety of comparative references became part of the American language around 1902. Here are some offshoots of the above: “Lit up like a cathedral,” “Lit up like a church,” “Lit up like Main Street,” “Lit up like a skyscraper,” and “Lit up like Times Square.”

17. Pissed as a skunk —Martin Cruz Smith
18. Pissed as a newt —American colloquialism

    This means to be very drunk.

19. Smell … like a tap-room —Anton Chekhov
20. Smells like a still —Cornell Woolrich
21. Some men are like musical glasses: to produce their finest tones you must keep them wet —Samuel Taylor Coleridge
22. Taught himself to drink as he would have taught himself Greek; like Greek it would be the gateway to a wealth of new sensations, new psychic states, new reactions in joy or misery —F. Scott Fitzgerald
23. (I have been) tight as a tick —Tallulah Bankhead
24. A hangover like a herd of elephants —Graham Masterton
25. (He was) so knocked out with liquor that he vomited like a whale, urinated like a dog, exposed himself like a jackass, and wallowed in his muck like a pig —St. Kitts’ government newspaper, The Democrat, about leader of opposition, 1981
26. The stuff [liquor] was like insulin to a diabetic; he didn’t need much of it at a time, but if he needed little he needed it often —Howard Nemerov

    The simile describes the drinking habits of a character in Nemerov’s short story, Unbelievable Characters.

27. Woke up with his head like a big split millstone —John Dos Passos
28. When drunk, his color sank to a clammy white from which it rose like a thermometer as he sobered up —Mary Ward Brown
29. His head still felt like a sandbag full of maggots —Sterling Hayden
30. Whiskey … went through me like a rope of fire —Louise Erdrich
31. Whiskey … burned his stomach like hellfire —Paige Mitchell
32. The spirit of the wine was rising like smoke to his head —George Garrett
33. The bourbon was warm in her stomach … like a core of heat —Jayne Anne Phillips