In Issue 214 of Action Comics, Clark Kent is seen ordering bourbon

October 8, 2013 1:39 PM

Is there a comic book character with a signature alcoholic beverage?

To clarify: I'm not looking for cocktails that have been invented by bartenders as a tribute to a comic book character, but instances in comics where a character has a typical drink that they order.

Something like Jean-Luc Picard's "Tea, Earl Grey, Hot" or the Ninja Turtles' fixation on pizza, but with liquor.

This is for a verbal joke that will appear in a webisode I'm shooting this weekend, so it should be something that doesn't rely on a prop and which can actually be said by an actor. (I was tempted to go more sci fi with the joke and do something about Pan Galactic Gargle-Blasters, but it just seemed like too clunky a line.)

It's ok if it's an extremely obscure fact, like Bruce Wayne ordering a Tom Collins in one issue, decades ago.

I would also accept suggestions from other aspects of geek culture like sci fi or video games. Anime/Manga probably won't work, though.

I have seen the "Trademark Favorite Food" TV Tropes article, but nothing in there really did it for me.

posted by Sara C. to Media & Arts (16 answers total)

Grim Fandango, Marillo del Oro (video game).
posted by sweetkid at 1:46 PM on October 8, 2013

Not a comic, but: Bender from Futurama sure does enjoy his Lobrau beer and Old Fortran Malt Liquor.

Probably not what you're looking for, but Jonathan Ames wrote a pretty interesting graphic novel called The Alcoholic.

Andy Capp must have had a drink he preferred, right?
posted by Dr. Wu at 1:47 PM on October 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

Does the Simpsons count (they have comic books, and definitely counts for geek culture)? How about the Flaming Moe, or Duff beer?
posted by I am the Walrus at 1:48 PM on October 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Obscure one:
Tony Stark has a bottle of Winston Canadian whiskey (probably a stand-in for Windsor Canadian) on the cover of Demon in a Bottle
posted by I am the Walrus at 1:49 PM on October 8, 2013 [6 favorites]

Wolverine is another whiskey drinker, particularly in the recent movies.

It has been suggested in the comics that Kitty Pryde / Shadowcat's perfect drink is a coffee highball ("'cause those go right through you"). Since that was a joke that probably stretches the question a bit too far.

In Sandman (issue 22) Dream brings Hob Gadling a bottle of Château Lafite-Rothschild 1828, which at the time of their meeting only exists in dreams.
posted by jedicus at 2:03 PM on October 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Captain Haddock and "Loch Lomond" whisky
posted by kmennie at 2:16 PM on October 8, 2013 [3 favorites]

Probably too obscure, but the Thing from the Fantastic Four used to drink Iron City beer. (At least he did back in the early 1980s.)
posted by sirvinegar at 2:22 PM on October 8, 2013

Response by poster: Tony Stark has it.

I used a quote from Iron Man, "Give me a scotch, I'm starving."
posted by Sara C. at 2:36 PM on October 8, 2013 [3 favorites]

Going sci-fi, Romulan Ale or Synthahol.
posted by Boxenmacher at 2:44 PM on October 8, 2013

It's not a brand, but Wolverine is well known for his love of beer. There's a great sequence in Whedon's Astonishing X-Men where each character is given a few panels (page?) of copious inner monologue during a fight sequence. Wolverine's panels are all blank except for the last one, which reads "I really like beer."
posted by entropicamericana at 3:22 PM on October 8, 2013 [3 favorites]

Running with Wolverine, I know there's at least one panel in the Byrne or Cockrum years where he's clearly drinking a Labatt.

I can't find my copy, but I know that there's an issue (drawn by Chris Bachalo, if that helps track it down) in Morrison's New X-Men where Cyclops is drinking something ridiculous (mimosas, maybe?) alone in a bar, and then Wolverine strolls over with a bottle of whiskey.
posted by COBRA! at 6:21 PM on October 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

If you're willing to jump out of superhero comics, almost all the Minutemen in 100 Bullets had a particular drink they favored. Cole Burns, for instance, was a tequila man.
posted by bswinburn at 8:05 PM on October 8, 2013

I think the problem here is that heavy regular drinking, presented as being an admirable behavior, is one of the things forbidden by the Comic Code Authority.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 9:03 PM on October 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

all the Minutemen in 100 Bullets

Or Spider Jerusalem in Transmetropolitan, whose preferred drink was everything, and preferred drug was all of them.
posted by Ghidorah at 3:15 AM on October 9, 2013

I checked the Comics Code Authority entry in Wikipedia, and there's no mention of alcohol, although some comics (most notably an issue of The Amazing Spider-Man) were declined approval for showing drug use. The only other example that I can think of, besides the aforementioned "Demon in a Bottle" issue of Iron Man and the lead-up to it and Wolverine enjoying brews on a regular basis, was some random issue of the Fantastic Four in which Ben Grimm has a beer in a Lower East Side tavern and makes a point of mentioning that he limits himself to one because, well, he's super-strong. This sort of near-teetotaling among superheroes pretty much ended with the beginning of the post-Watchmen grimdark era. (It was roughly around that time that the X-Men had an issue in which Colossus, who was feeling sorry for himself because he and Kitty Pryde broke up following Secret Wars, got his ass kicked by Juggernaut in a bar (which resulted in that bar's destruction), with Wolverine declining to intervene because he thought that Piotr had it coming.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:17 PM on October 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

Oh, and on the DC side, I'm pretty sure that at least some of the older Teen Titans got to have real champagne at Donna "Wonder Girl" Troy's wedding.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:20 PM on October 10, 2013