Self-Aggrandizement: Consumer Whore Week: The Hip Flask

Like the three-martini lunch, the hip flask has, sadly, fallen out of favor in these sober times. And while, if tastelessly displayed, a flask can say 'I'm an alcoholic, but an old money alcoholic', it can also be immensely practical.

For struggling artist types in a city like New York, where bar-owners have the gumption to charge $10 for drinks mixed from Popov vodka, a flask can yield far better drinking at a vastly reduced price. Further, topping off a bar-ordered coke with flasked rum, rather than (correctly) making you look like a cheap bastard, instead gives a hint of luxurious élan paired with a mischievous streak of devil-may-care.

It's outside of bars where flasks really shine, because careless designers the world over seem to have forgotten to install wet bars on commuter trains, in taxi cabs, seat-back in opera houses, or in the bathroom of your girlfriend's puritanical parents.

A few further tips: when buying a flask, steer clear of anything 'clever', decorated, or made from a material other than silver, pewter, stainless steel or leather-bound glass. Also feel free to give flasks liberally as gifts - men love them for their practicality, women for the Bond girl lifestyle they seem to imply. In either case, monogramming is a nice touch.

And, finally, as wisely observed by Tesauro & Mollod in The Modern Gentleman, "carry a flask in a breast or coat pocket; if this in not possible, you are underdressed for flasking."

Pick one up, and be prepared, wherever you happen to be, when dipsomania next hits.

Consumer Whore Week: The Hip Flask Filed Wednesday, October 12 2005.

Consumer Whore Week: The Hip Flask
Filed Wednesday, October 12 2005.