Mary Killen Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 21 February 2019

issue 23 February 2019

Q. I have given up drink except on certain occasions when it would be really rude to refuse. What’s the best way of telling kind hosts at parties that you’re not drinking, without causing their faces to drop with disappointment? I’ve tried accepting a glass and then not drinking it, but that means a wasted glass for the host.
— F.R., Suffolk

A. The disappointment swiftly evaporates when you flourish a can of something which looks exactly like alcohol, such as Pils Infinite Session craft lager (0.5 per cent), which you have brought with you. As long as you are faux-mirroring your fellow socialisers by drinking what looks like alcohol, they will quickly forget that the stupefacient quota of your intake bears no comparison to what they themselves are glugging back. You will find that the merriment may proceed untrammelled.

Q.

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