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I discovered early on that you don’t have to drink to build yourself a hangover. There were mornings when I groaned my way to consciousness, wondering dimly whether it was port or malt whisky that had polluted my mouth and dehydrated my eyes, until I remembered that it could only have been too much ginger beer and late-night snooker. Then, the next morning, I would feel fine, or at least all right, with the same mysterious lack of apparent reason.

My ability to sleep, which I had expected to suffer, didn’t. The only department in which my health really took a turn for the better was the digestive one. The old organs have always (touch wood) served me reasonably well, but over the years I have had some mild trouble from wind, flatulence, belching, whatever word you like. Abstinence caused this to vanish at once and completely, and, of course, what did it was abstaining from wine, not from spirits, which don’t directly affect the digestion. I’ve argued before in this column that wine can be a bad and acidity-producing idea in England with English food, and it was interesting to have the point confirmed, even if getting the confirmation this way was a bit of a drag.

As regards other parts of the system, my liver no doubt benefited from its sudden lay-off, but it didn’t send me any cheering messages to say so. My mental powers seemed unaltered, certainly unimproved—I was no less forgetful, short on concentration, likely to lose the thread or generally unsatisfactory than I had been before. But now I had no excuse. That was the only big difference: when I was drinking I had the drink to blame for anything under the sun, but now it was all just me. A thought that must drive a lot of people to drink.

I hope I haven’t discouraged anyone who might be thinking of taking a short or long holiday from grape and grain. The easiest part is the actual total not drinking, much easier than cutting it down or sticking to beer or anything like that. Very nearly the hardest part is putting up with the other fellow when he’s drinking and you’re just watching him. At such times you’re probably not much fun yourself either. Fruit juice and company don’t mix.

In practice, an aperitif is what a waiter calls a drink you drink before you eat. Theoretically it’s supposed to stimulate your appetite, though in my experience all a drink stimulates your appetite for is another drink. I would allow just one possible exception, a single small glass of dry sherry—in this country the traditional prelude to a really serious gastronomic occasion, the sort where you talk about the wine for half an hour before you drink it and would as soon think of dancing on the table as of lighting a cigarette. At less momentous times a glass of chilled dry white wine seems generally acceptable and champagne is evidently always okay.

A development that’s catching on, while not my kind of thing, is nevertheless worth a try. This is the mixture known as Kir (rhymes with beer)—about six parts dry white wine to one part crème de cassis or blackcurrant liqueur. The cunning French have recently brought out a pre-mixed version. Good for those who fancy a not-too-strong, not-too-dry refresher. Some people moisten the rims of the glasses and twirl them in castor sugar beforehand.

The various forms of vermouth started life as aperitif drinks. They consist of wine from inferior districts flavoured with herbs, spices, etc. (a very ancient practice), and lightly stiffened with grape alcohol, with sugar added to the sweet varieties. The Italian (sweet red) sort has a large respectable following and is also popular with alcoholics, perhaps because of its blandness and good value strength against price. The French (dry white) sort is popular with ladies and others who don’t really like drinks at all. Chamberyzette is a French vermouth flavoured with wild strawberries, delicious to some, reminding others of whitewash.

Standing near the vermouths on the off-licence shelves are their close relatives, the so-called wine aperitifs, Dubonnet,