I was raised Methodist. My mother was an observant true believer who drank, gambled, and smoked (all in moderation). I never heard anything from the minister or other church members against drinking or gambling, so I wonder where this notion comes from.
And in New Zealand Methodists and Presbyterians are very close but not yet united. Some places, but not everywhere.
Presbyterianism is solidly rooted in the southern part of New Zealand with Knox College, Dunedin being a seminary for Presbyterian ministers. Dunedin is regarded as the Edinburgh of the south. Much of Dunedin is still owned by the church.
We Presbyterians scorn the other fainthearted Christian faiths and look to John Knox and Martin Luther as our guides. Well…thats what my aged mum tells me. 
del
Historically, the Methodists (particularly Primitive Methodists) preached living a godly (upright, moral) life, and abstaining from drunkenness was a big part of that. The (U.S.) Methodist Episcopal Church’s Board of Temperance, Prohibition, and Public Morals was a major player in the late-19th/early-20th century temperance movement leading up to Prohibition in 1920.
Let’s see. The Methodists were basically an offshoot of the Anglicans, who, of course, broke away from the Catholics primarily over governance rather than specific issues of theology.
The Presbyterians are an iteration of the Reformed movement that took its basic theology from John Calvin (and others). Other than predestination and the doctrine of the elect, the biggest practical difference anymore seems to be that Methodists – like Lutherans, Anglicans and Catholics – believe that God is actually present (in some way) in the Eucharist, while Presbyterians believe it’s only a symbolic remembrance of the Last Supper.
In my experience, the real difference seems to be that Methodists tend to be a little more outgoing while the Presbyterians are more reserved.
I don’t recall this kind of church history being discussed in our congregation. It does shed light on why our Pennsylvania cousins (also Methodists) joked about how Methodists never recognize each other in the liquor store. 
I will mention that I never saw my mother drunk, and I’m not sure I even saw her tipsy.
I’m newly-ish Methodist after a being a lifelong (with bouts of agnosticism) non-denominationalist / lite fundamentalist and I’ve never heard anyone from the pulpit on down say anything against partaking. As a matter of fact, our recently acquired pastor just told me a story about some of the wine she got for Christmas. And this is in the bible buckle south.
Fundamental religious differences: Jews don’t recognize Christ as the Messiah. Protestants don’t recognize the authority of the Pope. Baptists don’t recognize each other at the liquor store.
I was raised United Methodist and am still active in the church.
By comparison to the other local churches where I grew up, the main difference compared to them is that Methodists rotate their ministers. That is, ministers are assigned to churches by a regional council for a period of time, and then moved to another church. The congregation doesn’t have much say in the matter, although if true conflict occurs, ministers can be moved on more quickly.
There is a lot variation in the communion, from one congregation to another. Details like frequency: weekly vs monthly (most common) vs yearly, or grape juice (most common) vs wine, or big cup vs little sipper cup (most common), or leavened (most common) vs unleavened bread, or whole loaf vs precut cubes (most common). The one absolutely universal part of a Methodist communion is that it is “open table”–anyone who feels the call of Christ is allowed to partake, whether or not they’re a member of the congregation or the Methodist Church or even baptized.
There’s no universal prescription against alcohol. In my confirmation classes, we learned about the active role our Methodist Church played in prohibition. But these days the church is not prohibitionist, instead it’s more anti-drunkenness.
Oh, the Church does not have a fixed policy about baptism. It’s up to each congregation about whether to baptize infants (under two) or wait until confirmation (junior high). My current church didn’t want to baptize my kids until they were older until I threatened to take them to my hometown congregation at Christmastime to be baptized. They did ended changing policy. Oh, the baptism is Trinitarian, but that’s true for almost everyone.
I’m sure there’s other “important” doctrinal differences between Methodists and other churches, but Methodists are not really dogmatic and there’s few day-to-day difference once you get past communion, baptism and confirmation.
There were (maybe still are) some scuffles in the higher levels of the church about gay rights. One congregation I was in was very pro-gay and did a lot of outreach and community work along those lines. Others, not so much. It’s mostly left to the individual churches what to do.
FWIW, George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton are both Methodists.
I was raised Presbyterian and married a Methodist. This shocked my former boss, an Orthodox Jew. “But that means you can’t dance or drink anymore!” (Which was news to my husband and his parents. Although the Methodist minister who married us was old enough to remember the not dancing part.)
As far as who’s in charge: from what I understand, at the individual church level, the choir members are.
Old joke: “How can there by a dancing foot and a praying knee on the same leg?”
“When they’re connected by a fatted calf.”
A Presbyterian was rescued after being on a desert island for a decade. The rescuers asked him what his three huts were for.
“That one’s my house, and that one’s my church.”
“So what’s the third hut?” he was then asked.
“Oh, that’s were I *used *to go to church.”
My grandmother’s very Presbyterian version of pre-destination was that only Presbyterians go to heaven.
Not really a true definition, strictly speaking.
As a final thought, my mother once attended a Methodist Church where drinking, smoking and dancing were verboten. As an addition to the sin catalogue, the minister said that “every motion picture watched was another brick in the road to hell.”
Again, I think that is misapplied doctrine.
She returned to the Presbyterian fold shortly thereafter and is, undoubtedly, in heaven to this day, having smoked, drank and danced until the end of her days, as a happy Scot-Irish Presbyterian.
The Bush family was Episcopalian, and now two of the kids went into opposite directions - Catholicism and Methodism. Jeb is in Florida and has a Mexican wife, while George moved to Texas, where the two flavors of religion among white people are Methodist and Baptist, and went with (I think) the church his wife attended.
I was raised in the 70’s in Georgia. There, Presbyterians were very liberal as far as fundamentalism, more like what I see Episcopalians portrayed other places.
The Methodist thing about being anti-alcohol goes back to John Wesley, founder of Methodism. His world was that of 18th-century England, where life was really crappy for lots of people, and, as happens in such places, alcoholism and excessive indulgence were common. He saw lots of lives ruined by alcohol and so preached against its consumption.
The UMC is also non-dogmatic, so one does not have to abide by all of the stated positions of the church to be considered observant.
By our standards, he was a fundie by practice, if not by literalism. “Methodist” was originally a pejorative about their strict methodical ways, much like how outsiders call the LDS “Mormons” or the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing “Shakers,” but like the Mormons and more so, they adopted the name for their own.
Speaking of Wesley — and I have a slightly benevolent attitude towards him since his mother was jacobite, in opposition to his damned father — once read in an old magazine his receipt for consumption: in the early morning you dig up a square foot of turf, then kneel on all fours and breathe in and out of the hole.
Probably worked as well as anything else back then.
Apparently, so was Presbyterian. King George III allegedly called the American Revolution, The Presbyterian Rebellion.
We were taught in communicants class that he called it that because of the large number of Presbyterians signing the Declaration of Indepednece.
Not really true, however.
He used the term prejoratively to mean “ill mannered, anti-monarchical fanatics.”
That’s hardshell Baptists.
The quick answer is that there isn’t much difference. The ELCA (Lutheran, PC-USA (Presbys), UCC (United Church of Christ), EC-USA (Whiskeypalians to Mumpers), UMC (Methodists) and others are in what we protestants call “Full Communion”. We can call/hire each others Pastors for the most part and in general try to work and play well together.
But remember there are different “flavors” in each denomination. For example, the above is for ELCA and NOT those who follow the “Dark Side of the Force” – Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod or Lutheran Church - Wisconsin Synod. Last I checked there were 96 different Lutheran churches world-wide and few of themn get along let alone get along with anyone not Lutheran.
It’s like the one other really old joke:
I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump. I ran over and said: “Stop. Don’t do it.”
“Why shouldn’t I?” he asked.
“Well, there’s so much to live for!”
“Like what?”
“Are you religious?”
He said, “Yes.”
I said, “Me too. Are you Christian or Buddhist?”
“Christian.”
“Me too. Are you Catholic or Protestant?”
“Protestant.”
“Me too. Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?”
“Baptist.”
“Wow. Me too. Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?”
“Baptist Church of God.”
“Me too. Are you original Baptist Church of God, or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God?”
“Reformed Baptist Church of God.”
“Me too. Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915?”
He said: “Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915.”
I said: “Die, heretic scum,” and pushed him off.