Most of us like to get a nice cold beer after a long day in the sun. Cools you down quite a bit. Others will continue to get wasted and move to stronger liquor and end up with a bit of a headache the next day. That’s what I would call getting plastered.

The only place where you can buy alcohol in India is in Wine Shops, some upper class restaurants (NON-VEG) and Hotels. You can find Wine Shops in every city. Wine Shops open at 7am and close by 11 – 12pm depending on the location. The fact of the matter is that you cannot buy alcohol to take away anywhere else. Furthermore, India is what I would call a dry country, meaning that you cannot buy beer and party at night because all alcohol sales close by 11:30pm. The only place where you can buy a beer afterwards is through Hotel Room Service.

Here is a short story of how Tamil Nadu became so strict on alky. About 2 years ago an Indian girl got a bit drunk at a club in Taj Hotel in Chennai. On the way out some guys started giving her some trouble, she got on her bike and told them off. Since those boys were also a bit tipsy, they got into their car and followed her, harassing her on the road. At a certain point, the girl lost control of her bike, fell off and got run over by an oncoming vehicle, which killed her. Moral of the story is that you do not drink and drive! Especially in India!

This incident had very large implications all over Tamil Nadu. From then on, all clubs only operate till 12pm and then they just kick you out. So not much of a night life if you ask me.

The best beer in Tamil Nadu is Kingfisher. It even tastes better than a lot of European brands. Another good brand is Sand Piper. There are a few other brands that I wasn’t too impressed with. Most of them are of the strong type. Kingfisher also has 2 varieties – Lager and Strong. Take the lager if you don’t want you beer tasting like syrup.

You can also find other liquors like whiskey and vodka, but I haven’t found anything that tastes decent. A common vodka is Romanov but it tastes like Tesco Vodka. So drink that at your own risk.