this site is my collection of all things cocktail since 1980 • please give credit if used for media purposes • condensed mobile version coming soon
Bar & Cocktail Poems
I'M NOT DRUNK POEM
Starkle, starkle, little twink,
Who the hell you are I think,
I'm not under what they call
The alcofluence of incohol.
I'm not drunk as thinkle peep,
I'm just a little slort of sheep.
Tee martoonis make a guy
Fool so feelish, don't know why
Rally don't know who's me yet
The drunker I stay the longer I get
So just one more to full my cup,
I've all day sober to Sunday up.
-Sold Cober
THE BEER PRAYER
Our lager,
Which art in barrels,
Hallowed be thy drink.
I will be drunk,
At home as in the tavern,
Give us this day our foamy head,
And forgive us our spillages,
As we forgive those who spill against us.
And lead us not to incarceration,
But deliver us from hangovers.
For thine is the beer,
The bitter and the lager,
Forever and ever,
Barmen
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread-and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness-
O, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears
TO-DAY of past Regrets and Future Fears:
To-morrow!-Why, To-morrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n thousand Years.
Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter---and the Bird is on the Wing.
And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press,
End in the Nothing all Things end in --Yes--
Then fancy while Thou art, Thou art but what
Thou shalt be---Nothing---Thou shalt not be less.
- Omar Khayyám
Photo by Max Pixel.net/ Creative Commons Zero - CC0
THE LAST BARMAN POEM
1988 film Cocktail
I am the last barman poet,
I see America drinking the fabulous cocktails I make,
Americans getting stinky on something I stir or shake,
The Sex on the Beach, the schnapps made from peach,
The Velvet Hammer, The Alabama Slammer,
I make things with juice and froth,
The Pink Squirrel, the 3-toed Sloth,
I make drinks so sweat and snazzy,
The Iced Tea, the Kamikazi,
The Orgasm, the Death Spasm,
The Singapore Sling,
The Dingaling.
America you've just been devoted to every flavor I got,
But if you want to got loaded,
Why don't you just order a shot?
Bar is open.
Let schoolmasters puzzle their brain,
With grammar, and nonsense, and learning,
Good liquor, I stoutly maintain,
Gives genius better discerning.
- Oliver Goldsmith
Give me Champagne,
I won't complain,
If that's the best you can do,
But if you've got class,
Fill my glass,
With Oklahoma homebrew.
- Tom T. Hall
Too much work, and no vacation,
Deserves at least a small libation,
So hail! my friends, and raise your glasses,
Work's the curse of the drinking classes.
- Oscar Wilde
Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That’s all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.
- William Butler Yeats
Boy, bring a bowl of China here,
Fill it with water cool and clear:
Decanter with Jamaica right
And spoon of silver, clean and bright.
Sugar twice-fin'd in piece cut,
Kni[f]e, sieve and glass in order put,
Bring forth the fragrant fruit and then
We're happy till the clock strikes ten.
- Benjamin Franklin 1737 (Jamaica means Jamaican rum)