In Defence of the Nightcap

Sebastian Rowe on the smallest ritual in drinking: one measure, one glass, and the end of the day.

The clocks went back on Sunday. They handed us an extra hour in bed and quietly took an hour of evening light in exchange, and since then the dark has been arriving before I have finished working. This is the stretch of the year when the evening gets very long and has nowhere in particular to stop. Halloween is on Saturday, the shops are full of pumpkins, and nobody has told the evening how to end.
I have a suggestion. It is small and unfashionable, and I intend to defend it.

"The nightcap is not a drink. It is a full stop."

A hat, then a drink

For roughly four hundred years, a nightcap was only something you wore. The word goes back to the late fourteenth century, and it meant a cap for your head in bed. It was the early nineteenth century before anyone used it for a drink. One theory is that the two simply went together: a last drink and the cap were both part of getting ready for bed.
I like that, because it puts the point where it belongs. The name was never about the liquid. It was about going to bed.

Mary Le Bone Cask Aged Gin 70cl

GBP 48.00

Gin Mare Capri Gin 1litre

GBP 48.00

Four Pillars Navy Strength 1litre

GBP 55.00

Giw Gastronomic Gin 70cl

GBP 65.00

Four Pillars Bloodyshiraz 1litre

GBP 56.00

Gin Mare 1litre

GBP 55.00

Hendricks Gin 1litre

GBP 45.00

What it isn't

It is not a sleep aid, and I won't pretend otherwise. Drinkaware's line is that alcohol might help you fall asleep, but even a couple of drinks can affect how well you sleep. Anyone who tells you a nightcap is for sleeping is selling something or negotiating with themselves. Drinkaware also advises against drinking too close to bedtime, since on average the body takes an hour to process a unit. So the nightcap belongs to the end of the evening, not the edge of the pillow. And it is not one more. One more is what an evening does when it has nowhere to stop. The nightcap is what you do when you have found somewhere.

Mine is dull on purpose. One measure. The same short glass. The kitchen, the back door locked, the phone in another room. I drink it standing up, because sitting down is how a nightcap becomes an hour. Whisky does the job, so does a small cognac, so does a tawny port. What they share is slowness. None of them can be hurried, and a drink that cannot be hurried gives the day somewhere to finish.
Then the glass gets rinsed and the lamp goes off. That is the whole ritual. Nothing about it is impressive, which is the appeal.

The only rule

There is one rule, and it is the only part of this I would defend against anyone. A nightcap you cannot skip is not a nightcap. If the night goes wrong without it, it has stopped being a full stop and become something else, and that is a different essay for a different conversation. The ritual works because it is optional. And if you do not drink, the same job is done just as well by a cup of tea and a locked door. It is the ending that matters, not the ethanol.
So this week, with the dark coming at teatime, find the place where your evening stops. Then stop there.