Excerpt from Bookforum.com; article by Alexander Waugh

Amis drank like a proverbial fish from boyhood through adulthood. In his early days, when he was poor and unrecognized, he went for whatever gave the most alcohol for the smallest amount of money. This method is known in England as “drinking the park-bench bottle,” because it is by looking under park benches, where the tramps have left their empties, that one may discover, without having to work it out for oneself, which drink gets one drunkest for the fewest pennies. Young Amis discovered for himself that for twenty-five old pennies he could get himself plastered on three barley wines, a pint of rough cider, and a small whisky. As his means improved, he moved on to beer as his daily tipple and from beer advanced to Scotch whisky, of which he drank so much that by the late ’70s, his monthly bill for the stuff was one thousand pounds. “Scotch whisky is my desert-island drink,” he said. “I mean not only that it is my favorite but that for me it comes nearer than anything else to being a drink for all occasions and all times of day.” Like most writers, however distinguished, Amis was not a particularly rich man. “If I had pots of money,” he used to say, “the only thing I would buy is people to carry me around.”