The other night, I was at this perfume launch (True Star from Tommy Hilfiger, to be specific) featuring Beyonce as the star attraction . . . and yes, the bootylicious body is no idle hype. I mention this because the guests at the event were mostly female, mostly employed in the fashion/beauty business, and guaranteed to know their recommended alcohol unit intake and the difference between good and bad fat. As such, they were pretty representative of the health-and-appearance-conscious young woman. Naturally, the Veuve Clicquot was flowing and, in the middle of this scene, I heard an editor say something that seemed to go straight to the heart of the way women drink: "I wasn't going to have a drop, but then I saw those gorgeous champagne glasses and I thought, 'F*** it'."
Recently - in among all the panic about binge-drinking - it was reported that 96 per cent of bars and restaurants have phased out the standard wine glass in favour of a more impressive 250ml version that holds one-third of a bottle. This news was taken as a disaster for the unsuspecting, unit-counting public. What no one seemed to notice was that it's also a sign that our drinking culture has become more feminine - that is, aware that the look of a drink and the environment in which it is drunk is as important as the drink itself.
For every female drinker who is happy to down warm bitter from a plastic beaker in a Happy Eater, there are two who like to delude themselves that alcohol is synonymous with sophistication and chic. We may like straight gin, but we like the look of a Martini more. Likewise, the new wine chill factor - demanding that crisp dry white with instant condensation on the glass - is also female-driven. Or, to put it another way, if the Tommy Hilfiger people had been serving cider in paper cups, they'd have saved an awful lot on the drinks bill.
The way women drink is based on a different psychology from the way men drink. For a start, we think we don't. We have a very clear picture of girls who binge-drink (skirts around their waists, lying in the gutter in Ayia Napa), and we are not like that, no matter how many bottles we take out in the morning. We'll choose a blue cocktail because we think it looks fetching, and we drink to not eat. Though we know that alcohol contains calories, we tell ourselves they don't count, because they aren't solid, in the same way that the white-wine epidemic is driven by our conviction that it's the thinner drinker's choice. (Less sugar? Less bloating?) At the same time, we regard alcohol as the enemy - of our skin, hair, waistlines, ovaries - and beg our friends to keep tabs on us when we go out. But this goes out of the window as soon as we find a nice booth at a place with those lovely, long-stemmed glasses and shiny silver wine buckets.
