Under The Influence: A History of Alcohol in Australia
Author: Ross Fitzgerald and Trevor L Jordan
Published by: ABC Books

When we Australians are not sipping alcopops at Narelle’s party or reddening our cheeks at the Melbourne Club or pounding beers on Australia Day, we’re tsk-tsking each other for drinking too much. Violence! Car wrecks! Fev! We really are a pack of wowsers (or, as they called them back in the good ol’ days, hypocrites).

I drink too much, you drink too much, and as a nation we drink too much. But, as Fitzgerald and Jordan report in their ironically sober tome, we don’t drink nearly as much as we like to think we do.

There’s an uncomfortable friction in the odd patriotism Australians feel regarding their ability and propensity to get completely aled, and the resulting troubles from getting completely aled. The authors detail all the societal ructions caused by the demon drink, from the political ramifications of the Rum Rebellion to the clerical push of the Temperance movement to the national shame of the Aboriginal alcohol addictions.

The best parts of Under The Influence appear when Fitzgerald and Jordan delve deeply into the history books and closely examine the underlying and surrounding causes of these issues, often with surprising results. The Rum Rebellion was more complex than it seemed, the Eureka Stockade was fuelled, in part, by resistance to punitive drinking laws, Aboriginal Australia had intoxicating beverages eons before the English landed (although not as intoxicating) and we Aussies don’t, and never did, consume as much alcohol as we pride ourselves on.

Whether this is good or bad – good for our national health but bad for our national stereotype – is rarely explored in the book. Under The Influence may be the definitive history of Australian boozing, but that is derived more from the fact that it is as researched and thorough as a text book rather than as enlightening and ribald as a Barry McKenzie film.

It explores the drinking of our culture rather than the culture of our drinking, which, in these torrid times of 2am lockouts, alcohol-fuelled bashings and millions of tax dollars spent chiding us for having a tipple, is a bit of a disappointment.

The product does exactly what it says on the box and, almost incidentally, some of the tales are fascinating. The sections on viticulture, distillers and brewers are fun, not least due to the fact that most of Australia’s first firewater-peddlers are still in the business (the hokey yarn-spinning on James Squires bottle labels is all true!). And the history of alcohol marketing in Australia is rich with cultural ephemera, truly showing the signs of the times. Historical photos and illustrations are essential to the story and they’re used very well.

All of this said, you’re not going have much fun reading Under The Influence. And it’s not because Fitzgerald and Jordan are chastising us for drinking, or encouraging us either. They’re just providing the facts, ma’am. And the facts can be really dry.