History GargleBlaster / Literature

* In the ''Literature/NightHuntress'' books, Bones gives [[HalfVampire Cat]] a bottle of his special moonshine to drink to persuade a recalcitrant ghost. (ItMakesSenseInContext). She ends up drinking the entire bottle when she was only supposed to have a few sips. Bones is amazed that she's alive, let alone that she can walk (barely).

* Maple mead from Creator/LoisMcMasterBujold's ''[[Literature/VorkosiganSaga Vorkosigan]]'' series is always discussed with trepidation by the main characters. The Dendarii mountain folk, who are backwards even for a backwards planet like Barrayar, don't mess around with their alcohol. In moderation, the drink doesn't have much kick. The first glass or two taste sickly sweet, the next few glasses taste pretty good... and then you wake up the next morning with a killer hangover.

* ''Literature/TheManWithTheGoldenGun'' mentions "Infuriator," a potent sherry which M indulges in during times of extreme stress. The club is said to keep it around because M ''is the only one who drinks it.''

* ''Literature/StarWarsBloodline'' introduces Port in a Storm, a highly potent liquor from Greer's home planet. It's strong enough to knock almost anyone on their rump with a sip (when not inducing nausea). Of the Big Four, only Chewbacca can drink the stuff. Han does make use of it, though only as an emergency solvent.

* ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'' has Victory Gin. It has an oily smell, tastes like nitric acid, causes Winston's eyes to water profusely, and makes him feel as if he's been clubbed in the back of the head. Not even adding cloves-favored saccharine [[spoiler: as Winston does in the Chestnut Tree Café]] improves.

* ''Literature/TheRomulanWay'' by Creator/DianeDuane offers a justification for Romulan ale. Rather than being particularly alcoholic, Romulan ale, or ''kheh-irho'' in Romulan, is said to be harsh to the throat. Terise [=Haleakala-LoBrutto=] jokes that the Romulans drink it in part to prove that they ''can''. The series also mentions Romulan wine, much stronger than the ale. When told, the crew of the ''Enterprise'' is suitably shocked.

* ''[[https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/43271/dungeon-core-chat-room Dungeon Core Chat Room]]'': The dungeons' combined experiments in brewing actually kill one of the dwarven taste-testers -- but it might actually overlap with TooDumbToLive, since "the drink that did him in had melted every cup they had tried to contain it in and had been lapped sizzling off the melting floor." Innearth persuades Amy to add healing potion stations to the testing area after that.

* ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'' has Victory Gin. It has an oily smell, tastes like nitric acid, causes Winston's eyes to water profusely, and makes him feel as if he's been clubbed in the back of the head. Not even adding cloves-favored saccharine [[spoiler: as Winston does in the Chestnut Tree Café]] improves.

* ''Literature/1984'' has Victory Gin. It has an oily smell, tastes like nitric acid, causes Winston's eyes to water profusely, and makes him feel as if he's been clubbed in the back of the head. Not even adding cloves-favored saccharine [[spoiler: as Winston does in the Chestnut Tree Café]] improves.

** In ''Literature/{{Hogfather}}'', Bibulous the God of Alcohol is about to drink a lovingly-described, heavily-garnished, layered cocktail when he gets hit by the side-effects of the HideousHangoverCure consumed by Bilious, the Oh God of Hangovers ("[[BombWhistle Does anyone hear a slide whistle descending...?]]").

** Ford Prefect once wiped the mouth of a bottle of Ol' Janx Spirit off with his towel before giving the bottle to a girl. This had "the opposite effect of what was intended, in that the fumes of the Ol' Janx Spirit killed off all the bacteria on the towel..." There is also a drinking game based around it, in which two players place a bottle in between them and take turns telekinetically tipping the bottle so it fills up the opponent's cup -- which gets somewhat harder to do when you're off your face from the first sip, so it's something of a slippery slope, never mind that Ol' Janx Spirit depresses telepsychic powers. Incidentally, the consequence of failing this game involves doing something "grotesquely biological". Ford, we're told, plays to lose. (Ol' Janx Spirit, incidentally, is the primary ingredient in the TropeNamer.)