One of the few things that makes a trip out to Long Island remotely tolerable is the sweet succor of alcohol, which you can legally consume on board the LIRR to get rid of the pain of going to Hempstead. But all that's about to change, as the MTA announced an experiment next month: Are Long Islanders strong enough to endure an LIRR train ride without consuming any alcohol between the hours of midnight and 5 a.m. on weekends? We're about to find out, starting May 14th. more ›

Joycians and drinking enthusiasts, prepare yourselves! The brains behind San Francisco's Litquake will be bringing their literary bar crawl to book-and-beer loving Brooklyn! Manhattan has had its own event since 2008, but this year the city's getting not one but two booze heavy fests, one of which will take crawlers to about a dozen different venues in Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill. Next month, lovers of the written word can get their drink on at Lit Crawl Brooklyn, which will feature over thirty authors and offer up fourteen separate events, like literary-themed trivia, Taboo, and a cabaret. more ›

While the weather outside is delightful, and as daytime drinking is now deemed un-frightful, there's only one place to go: Outside to drink. As we've been pointing out for years, New York City is chock full of bars with lovely outdoor spaces where you can tipple in the fresh air. Here are a few of our current favorites, share yours in the comments! more ›

When organizers cancelled this year's St. Patrick's Day Parade in Hoboken, noting the city's "inability to protect our spectators, bands and participants," a few people decided to take matters into their own hands and organize the first Lepre-Con. The pub crawl is scheduled for this Saturday, March 3, but since some Hoboken bars aren't going to open until 11 a.m., there's a kick-off in Manhattan, where you can get drunk much earlier. more ›

It's National Margarita Day! And since we love any excuse to drink on a weekday, we're here to help you celebrate. Over the years our staff has tasted the best and worst this city has to offer of the tequila-based drink, and here our some of our favorites. more ›

Children, constantly ruining things for the rest of us! Smoking is much rarer on the screen now because seeing pretty people puffing apparently makes kids want to smoke. And now a new study is trying to persuade us that watching stars get wasted with no consequences is turning our nation's impressionable youth into a bunch of alcoholics (what, they didn't see Knocked Up?). Soon grown-ups won't be allowed to see grown-ups having fun in their own entertainments. more ›

Venerable East Village bar McSorley's Old Ale House turns 158 today! Or is it 150? A century and a half of beer sure can take its toll on the old memory, but certainly we can all agree the storied establishment is a NYC treasure. Eight years ago, Mayor Bloomberg officially declared today McSorley's Day, so let's all take a moment to disappear from work for an hour to knock back a celebratory pint. McSorley's, which is generally considered the oldest continuously-operating bar in NYC, was immortalized by New Yorker writer Joe Mitchell in his book McSorley's Wonderful Saloon. In the '40s, he found it to be: more ›

A judge has thrown out a lawsuit filed by a New Jersey man who blamed Wicked Willy's bar on Bleecker Street for getting him so drunk he tried to cross a highway and got run over. Alan Berger was 22 years old on that fateful night in 2009 when he dominated the beer pong table at Wicked Willy's. His lawyer argued that Berger should have been cut off, telling the Post "he was ‘winning’ and never left the beer-pong table." We were under the impression that you drink less when winning beer pong, but Berger's lawyer says his client got wasted because Wicked Willy's didn't monitor the action at the table. “They had just an unlimited amount of beer going on down there," the attorney says. more ›

One of the things that used to make New York City great is that all the bars stayed open until 4 a.m., so you could support your local businesses long after residents of other more provincial cities had tucked their dainty livers into bed. But more and more—and especially in Manhattan—2 a.m. is becoming the norm for last call, because local community boards are withholding liquor license approval unless barkeeps agree to shut down early. We've seen this happen all over the Lower East Side, the Meatpacking District, and Tribeca, and now Harlem is the latest part of town to demand veritably Bostonesque hours of operation. more ›

Hangovers keep you lean, mean, and honest. They punish you for your hubris and force the necessary introspection that comes after a night of self-abuse. The worst hangovers steel you for your next worst hangover—and for New Yorkers who have two or more drinks on a given evening, they're part of life [pdf]. Given that there is medicine to keep you studying, copulating, and growing hair, why not a potion for hangovers? If only it were that simple. In the interest of the most august journalism, we tested several different hangover "cures" so that you may be better prepared. more ›

You're cut off, says the NYC Health Department, which has just released a heavy new advertisement warning New Yorkers about the dangers of excessive drinking. And how much drinking is considered excessive by their medical standards? If you're a man, they say you're overdoing it if you consume more than two drinks a day or 14 in a one-week period. For women, the upper limits for drinking are one a day or seven over the course of a week. In other words, pretty much everyone you know in New York is a depraved booze-hound. more ›

Yo, this year's batch of Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais Nouveau was uncorked just after midnight, and it's got a bangin' new label that's sure to resonate with the wine's urban demographic! By French law, Beaujolais Nouveau—a young red wine made from the Gamay grape and bottled at the end of harvest—may not be released before the third Thursday in November. So the company does a big publicity stunt every year, uncorking the first bottle at the stroke of midnight, and designing a different label. This time they hired Brooklyn graffiti artist Kaves to do the honors. more ›

A Fordham sophomore who is paralyzed from the neck down after a fall from his lofted bed is suing the school for not installing guardrails. Last February, after a night of drinking, 20-year-old Kei Usami fell almost four feet from his bed and fractured his spine. According to the Post, his lawsuit also alleges that the schools volunteer EMS medics transported him without a neck brace, exacerbating the fracture. more ›

A group of 13 brave souls visited 200 bars in 10 hours, breaking the all-time pub crawl Guinness World Record of 170 set by a group in Chicago, the Daily News reports. Completely defeating the purpose of bar crawling, one member of the group drank a half-pint of beer at each establishment. No word on whether the Guinness World Record committee will acknowledge Randy Daufman, who yesterday consumed 200 beers in one bar, and whose ex-wife is apparently a "no good, thieving whore." more ›

Two years ago, the eagle eyes at the NY Post spied some World Trade Center workers enjoying some alcoholic beverages during their lunch breaks, and broke the shocking news that construction workers sometimes drink on the job. And today, to their utter disbelief, the Post reports that WTC hardhats are still boozing at lunchtime at the same spots they did two years ago. more ›

We're quite fond of the Greenwich Village live music club Le Poisson Rouge, so we were surprised to hear some grumbling about the bar, which seems to be charging patrons extra for drinks on the rocks (a common practice), but also charging extra for drinks not on the rocks, a.k.a. neat. One unhappy customer recently sent a copy of his or her receipt to Eater, and it shows a $3 charge for Glenlivet with ice, and a $3 charge for Glenlivet without ice. WHAT IS THIS RAPACIOUSNESS AND WILL THEY APOLOGIZE?, we asked the club. They got back to us promptly with an explanation that, well, kind of makes sense. more ›

It's time someone had the cajones to take on Big Water: a Glasgow-based doctor has published a new report claiming that all those studies that suggest people should drink a lot of water and stay hydrated is all hogwash and balderdash. General practitioner Margaret McCartney argues that drinking the recommended eight glasses a day can actually be harmful for you, and the benefits of it are often exaggerated by "organisations with vested interests" such as bottled water brands. more ›