I suppose that working-class folks drank beer if they drank at all. As for the middle class, it seems cocktails were a common after-work drink, but these days at least one doesn’t usually drink hard liquor through dinner. And my impression is that wine was not that popular in the 50s, not as an everyday drink, though I could well be wrong.
So: Mr. Grey Flannel Suit comes home to Greenwich, enjoys a Martini (gin and tonic, scotch on the rocks). Dinner is served, and he drinks–what?
ETA: I’m supposing the rich did drink wine with dinner–right?
Beer was also common with middle class families. Just different beers. Some were considered upscale.
Wine wasn’t all that common and usually only for special occasions.
For everyday family meals, though, nothing alcoholic was served. If you had a drink it would be before dinner; at dinner you were more likely to drink soda or milk.
I don’t remember my dad drinking beer with dinner, before dinner, yes.
And no pop for us at meals. Pop was for special occasions, maybe a Sunday afternoon or on the rare times we went out for dinner. Milk, or sometimes Kool-Ade or at my grandmother’s, Hawaiian Punch.
If my family and our middle-class friends are any indication, dinner itself was alcohol-free.
Mr. Grey Flannel Suit came home and knocked back a couple of cocktails (my father preferred the classic highball, but I recall some neighbors actually went to the trouble of mixing up a pitcher of martinis), and was often joined by Mrs. Suit. The Suits might even enjoy an after-dinner drink, but the dinner beverage was water and maybe iced tea or coffee.
The few times I remember my parents having wine with dinner were Very Special Occasions like Thanksgiving.
My parents didn’t drink anything with their evening meal (not in the 50’s, anyway; later they started having wine on Sundays, and later still they had wine every night). They didn’t have cocktails before, either, except later they did have gin & tonic on Friday nights. They drank coffee at the dinner table but after the meal was over, with dessert if there was dessert, or without if none.
I would consider us to have been lower middle class, both my parents worked very hard and we didn’t have a lot of money for extras, during those years.
Roddy