No list of Scottish drinking heroes could be complete without the man who gives his name and spirit to Scotland’s national drinking party.

Up your toasting game with our history of the tradition

Ever-keen to experience the boundaries of modern drinking, Hot Rum Cow turns to alcohol inhalation

Charles Percy Pickering and Hot Rum Cow plot the peculiar perils of the old-fashioned soak and the latter-day lush

How Champagne won its status and the happy accidents that brought the bubbles

In the early 20th century the word ‘hangover’ shifted from meaning unfinished business to cover that morning after feeling. It serves its purpose, but lacks the poetry of some overseas phrases

In fact, we owe him a bottle. If it wasn’t for Everyday Drinking, his idiosyncratic guide to snifters, Hot Rum Cow would never have happened

To better understand rum’s relation to reggae, Hot Rum Cow gets to grips with its religious role, confronts the Rollin’ Calf and conquers the duppies

Four of fiction’s best-known, but never seen, drinks are brought to life for Hot Rum Cow as imagined by illustrators.

Alcohol plays a vital role in shamanic rituals across the world, as our man in Ecuador discovered during a heated encounter with the local firewater on entering the House of Visions

RateBeer’s top 10 members have posted a combined 230,000 beer reviews. We explore the why and how with Jan Bolvig – the world’s most prolific beer reviewer

Ben McFarland and Tom Sandham appear to have the best jobs ever. They drink booze, make people laugh and dance in their underpants. We ask if they have any vacancies