Drink Based Characterization / Against Stereotype

Anime & Manga

• Roberta from Black Lagoon orders milk, and she's a human Terminator! It's a good way to provoke a fight. Also drinking milk in the series were Torch, a psychopathic Mormon pyromaniac and Rotton the Wizard a (not so) Badass Longcoat who can't hold his liquor. However, in a later appearance of Roberta, she orders tequila, signaling a return to her bloodthirsty past personality.
• One of the many ways that Devil May Cry showcases Dante's quirkiness despite his status as a badass is in, among other things, his tendency to instantly assume that people who enter his shop are looking for the bathroom, his fondness for tomato juice, and his habit of ordering a strawberry sundae from any bar he walks into. The last one in particular is seen in the very first scene in the anime.
• Badass giant robot pilot Van of GUN×SWORD has as his drink of choice... milk. He does have an excuse, however - he Can't Hold His Liquor worth a damn.
• Same with above example, although the guy in question is Yusei Fudo of Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds. Has a yellow shape on his face? Criminal. Wears leather or denim with shoulder, elbow and knee pads? Biker. Bar near a prison? This guy came from prison. Completely emotionless face? No Nonsense type of guy. What does he order? "Get me milk."
  • Of course, he expects to ride in a high-speed motorcycle race at any time, so staying sober is probably a good idea.
    • Fridge Brilliance and Justified Trope here. Previous episodes showed Yusei's age as 18 years old (at the time). The Japanese Legal Drinking Age is 20. Also a Casting Gag as above-mentioned Van shares a Seiyuu with Jack Atlas.
• The favorite drink of Afro Samurai: "Lemonade. Ice cold." (Lemonade is a major part of one of his few good childhood memories.) Do not interrupt the man while he's drinking, either.
• Colonel Paya Livingston from Magical Witch Punie-chan orders "the usual" at the bar and gives the barkeep a jar with "sake" written on it. However, "the usual" turns out to be chocolate milk, which the barkeep pulls from under the counter.
• In Dragon Ball we see Gilan, a dinosaur/dragon that competes in the Martial Arts Tournament. He goes to a bar and orders milk. A group of men mocks him but he pays no attention until one of them trips with his tail. The four men attacked him while Gilan asked the bartender for more milk. He literally defeated all of them before the glass got full.

Comic Books

• Another classic example is when The Phantom goes to town in the guise of Mr. Walker, to extract information. He will invariably visit the grungiest bar in the seediest part of Morristown and order milk. Nobody ever mocks him for it... more than once ("It is good for the bones" [starts breaking bones]). And they will always have a bottle handy.
  • Naturally. They need it to make Caucasians, which in turn is the girliest cocktail ever and only an acceptable guy's drink after The Big Lebowski was made.
• In the Marvel G.I. Joe comic, Zartan's Dreadnoks all drink grape sodas, usually served as if they were alcoholic.
  • Many members of the Joe team drink the fictional Yo-Joe Cola, which reportedly tastes nasty.
• Jackie Estacado of The Darkness is a non-drinker, and only orders non-alcoholic items at the local bar because "likes himself the way he is."
• Batman seldom drinks alcohol, however, as he plays up the role of the Upper-Class Twit, he is known to order Ginger Ale and pretend that it is champagne or the like. On the rare occasions when he does, he favors bourbon.
• In the early days of the comic book, Lucky Luke would always drink lemonade or Coca-Cola when he was at a saloon. But ever since the comic changed its publisher, he always orders beer.
• In Mesmo Delivery, Rufo, a huge, broad-shouldered former boxer now working as a truck driver, stops at a roadside diner and since he's working gets himself a glass of milk, unfortunately since he also has a rather pudgy, round face the other customers decide to call him a big baby.
• When Sam & Max hit up a bar before travelling to ancient Egypt, Sam orders a root beer and an Orange Julius; Max demands dishwater in a dirty glass.
• Played for Laughs with Cocco Bill by Benito Jacovitti: a sharpshooting, hot-tempered cowboy who only drinks chamomile tea.

Films — Live-Action

• A John Wayne quote (that he never said): "Get off your horse and drink your milk."
• Jean Girard from Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby daintily sips an espresso from a real china cup and saucer as he drives his stock car. It's against stereotype for NASCAR, but totally in-stereotype for a gay Frenchman. At least he's not downing Bordeaux during a race.
• The Mariachi from El Mariachi and Desperado, despite his badass gunslinger persona, orders soda when visiting a bar. He explains that he doesn't drink because he's a musician and afraid that it would ruin his voice.
• When Bond loses it all in Casino Royale (2006), he evidently does not give a damn about whether his martini is shaken or stirred.
• Billy Costigan in The Departed orders a cranberry juice. A mob flunkie who cracks a joke about it gets the glass in his face.
• In Clockers, one of the main characters is a low-level drug dealer who at one point walks into a bar and orders chocolate milk, specifically "Chocolate Moos." He thinks it will help his ulcer.
• In Sidekicks, Chuck Norris drinks milk... which automatically means milk is awesome.
• Charlie Chan is The Teetotaler, but in spite of the fact that he's Chinese and is a teetotaler he is no fan of tea; he prefers sarsaparilla (a root beer-like beverage).
• Rory, a badass Yardy gangster in Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels likes frothy drinks of the Umbrella Drink type. On one occasion, he does order a cocktail with a very high alcohol content, but that was only so he could spit it on someone who annoyed him and set them on fire.
• In Final Justice, Joe Don Baker's character is made fun of by a comically tiny Maltese Man for wanting to order milk (after trying and failing to procure some Maalox). This goes well for neither the tiny man nor the other Maltese guys in the bar.
• Invoked in Victor/Victoria when King Marchand goes to a working-class bar looking for a fight. He orders milk.
  Local tough: Cow's milk or mother's milk?
  King: How 'bout your sister's? [cue Bar Brawl]
• Played with in Shrek 2. Puss in Boots orders milk in the Bad Guy Bar. Then again, he's a cat.

Literature

• Archie Goodwin of the Nero Wolfe series generally orders milk (although he doesn't completely avoid strong drinks).
• In The Thrawn Trilogy, Mara Jade Skywalker, a female Rambo and Mama Bear with a lightsaber, also loves hot chocolate. Of course, she used to be a courtier (well, court assassin), where the drink was too unsophisticated; after that she was a smuggler, and her business partners, "like the good smugglers they were, had turned up their noses at all nonalcoholic drinks in general." By the time she marries Luke, she's looking for the comforting, homey atmosphere. See above.
• Biggles is an absolute teetotaller, and is seen in one of the early stories taking enormous risks in competition with a fellow airman over a crate of lemonade. This makes rather more sense when you know that it was originally a crate of excellent pre-war whisky, but was retconned later when the books became popular among children. In the post-WWI books he's teetotal even in the original editions, but this is because a mix of PTSD and lovesickness led to him becoming an alcoholic, which nearly got him killed on the last day of the war.
• In Star Wars, Darth Maul opts to order pure water - dedicated warrior that he is, he'd not dull his senses on a mission with anything alcoholic. Woman at the bar is somewhat disdainful, partly that he's not spending much... she gets a glare, and a mind whammy to bring him his drink and leave him alone.
• Honor Harrington's drink of choice is hot chocolate when she's on duty. When she's not, then it's an Old Tillman in a frosty stein, and she and her hubby just love to snark at her brother-in-law, a known wine snob.
  • In Field Of Dishonor, Denver Summervale's snobbishness is indicated (lampshaded, even) by his insistence on only drinking whiskey from Earth (known as "T-Whiskey"), which is exorbitantly expensive on Manticore, despite local versions of the drink being comparable in quality.
  • The only time we see Citizen Admiral Thiesman drinking alcohol in the books is when he is the commander of the Havenite forces at DuQuesne Base, when he becomes a heavy drinker of T-Whiskey^note Which he suspects of being fake, given how horrible it tastes after coming to the full realization of what kind of people running the government he serves, and how powerless he is to do anything about it.
• In The Dresden Files:
  • Sanya, a Russian-born Knight of the Cross, prefers brandy to stereotypical vodka (as many educated and cultured Russians do), but will happily drink either.
  • Father Forthill has been known to keep a hip-flask of good scotch on him.
• In one of the The Adventures of Samurai Cat books, Miaowara Tomokato goes into a rough bar and orders a saucer of milk. And gets it, though he needs to disassemble most of the patrons before being allowed to drink it in peace.
• In the Discworld books, hard-boiled cop Commander Vimes drinks lemonade. Justified, in that he's a recovering alcoholic. In Snuff, his butler has invented a cocktail which is non-alcoholic but nonetheless has a kick to it, since it includes some powerful spices.
• In one of E. E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman books Kimball Kinnison goes into a bar and orders a pineapple pop, in order to deliberately provoke a fight.
• In the Captain Future homage novel Avengers of the Moon, our hero orders a drink in a Bad Guy Bar to avoid hostile attention, but as he's not used to drinking (he's still quite young) the others recommend a session ale. Then Captain Future faces the problem of how you drink while wearing an oxygen mask (through a straw, as it happens).
• In the Mechwarrior: Dark Age novel Ghost War, intelligence operative Mason Dunne is at a party and notes that the bar has his favorite Irish Whisky on tap... but then deliberately avoids ordering it; his cover identity prefers a different drink, and he wants nothing, no matter how small, to link back to his true identity.
• In Clifford Simak's Hugo Winner Way Station, the alien called Ulysses is nuts about coffee.
• In Ranger's Apprentice, all of the Rangers have an addiction to coffee and manage to get a few of their non-Ranger friends hooked on the drink as well.
• Chicago plastic surgeon Frank W. Pirruccello wrote a series of amateur detective novels (among them The Praying Mantis Murder and The Capgras Syndrome) in which the dyspeptic middle-aged private eye was often found at the counter of his local diner nursing a cup of coffee that was about half milk.
• In Mary Russell's The Sparrow, Sofia Mendes loves Turkish coffee.
• Wax and Wayne: In Bands of Mourning, the Basin has started developing soft drinks. Wax almost spits it across the bar for being too sweet, and when he looks back ten seconds later he discovers that Steris has drunk it all. Later, Marasi finds out that the Southerners have a sweetened hot chocolate drink, which she insists is going to quickly become more valuable than their miraculous Magitek.
• Johannes Cabal the Detective has an in-universe version: gentlemen in testosterone-poisoned Mirkarvia customarily drink distilled spirits in absurd quantities, so Cabal's request for a beer convinces the bartender that he's a sensible, down-to-earth type. Unknown to the bartender, Cabal is not a habitual drinker, a gentleman, or a Mirkarvian.

Live-Action TV

• In "Gunmen of the Apocalypse", the Western episode of Red Dwarf:
  Rimmer: I've seen Westerns. I know how to speak cowboy. Leave the talking to me. [turns to the bar woman] A dry white wine and Perrier, please.
  • Oddly enough, in the same scene, the barmaid is completely confused by the Cat's trying to order tequila.
• Star Trek:
  • Worf subverts expectations by drinking prune juice. He calls it "a warrior's drink" because it's the closest approximation the replicators can make to Klingon bloodwine. By the time he gets to Deep Space Nine, he won't go back and insists on "prune juice, chilled" instead of blood wine.
  • Miles O'Brien of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine drinks "Coffee, Jamaican blend, double-strong, double sweet." This is probably supposed to sound incongruous to his Irish background.
• One of the rules for The Lone Ranger screenwriters was that he never touched alcohol - even the saloons had to resemble cafés.
• On Hustle, stylish con man Mickey Bricks seems to be a fan of orange juice.
• In one episode of ER, Mark Greene's father orders a fancy latte and explains to his son (paraphrased), "We're navy, but this is still California."
• The Middleman orders milk from bars. This wouldn't be against stereotype since he's such a boy scout, but he proceeds to torture his interrogation victim every time he takes a sip. The man cracks when he goes to get another bottle. "Lemonade. Ice cold".
• BA Baracus, the resident Scary Black Man from The A-Team is a strict teetotaller and only drinks milk.
• The McPoyles in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the criminal inbred rivals to The Gang, show up to the bar after word of mouth marketing reached them about The Gang's wild, total freedom policy:
  Liam: I heard you got 'anything goes' going on in here. So can we get a couple glasses of milk?
• El Chapulín Colorado features the outlaw and horrible villain El Cuajinais, entering the bar and ordering... a glass of milk.
  Waiter: A glass of milk?
  Cuajinais: ON THE ROCKS.
  Waiter: Alright.
  Cuajinais: [grabs his shirt threateningly] And without pasteurizating. I HATE SOFT DRINKS.
• In the short-lived show Legend, Nicodemus Legend is well-known for never drinking alcohol. But Ernest Pratt, the writer who publishes under the alias of Nicodemus Legend, does not follow this practice. In order to get his liquor without upsetting all the people who know that Legend doesn't drink, he drinks his whiskey from a teacup.
• In the Community episode "Mixology Certification" Troy, to honor his deceased uncle, wants to order a Seven and Seven as his first drink after turning 21, but is convinced by Jeff and Britta not to since that is "a high school drink for girls". In the end, he ends up ordering it anyway, but ends up leaving it on the counter to go take his drunk-off-their-asses friends home.
• In one episode of The Young Ones where they go to the pub, Vyvyan cheerfully orders a Babycham.
• Supernatural:
  • In the episode "Swap Meat", one of the first indications that Sam may not be quite himself comes when he orders an enormous sweet, fruity, frosted mixed drink instead of the Winchester brother standard of cheap American lager.
  • When the brothers travel back in time to The Wild West, Dean annoys Sam by ordering sarsaparilla for his little brother and a straight whiskey for himself, only to end up gagging on his shot (due to either poor quality or high alcohol content) much to Sam's amusement.
    Sam: You know, the sarsaparilla's not bad.

Video Games

• Coffee Talk:
  • People assume that Gala likes to drink because he's a big, burly guy, but he actually likes soft drinks instead because he doesn't like the taste of hard ones.
  • In Episode 2, Lucas goes against the stereotype of strong drinkers since he orders intense drinks to make up for the fact that he's really not.
• In Final Fantasy IV, a sidequest sees Cecil having to go to a bar and buy some time by talking with the barmaid. So, he orders a drink. What does newly-reformed soul-full-of-light Cecil order? Milk, of course.
• Final Fantasy Tactics: Milk is Ramza's drink of choice, too, prompting the bartender to comment.
• Valens van Varro in Final Fantasy XIV is a Garlean Empire Legate who prefers hearty, premium milk... to characterize him as an absolute asshole in his introductory scene. Valens goes on a tangent how his milk came from a group of one-hundred cows pampered their whole lives, but once it runs out of them, they are taken to the slaughterhouse since they've lost their purpose. He makes the allusion clear that the failures of his subordinates put them at risk of being "discarded" as well.
• In Poker Night at the Inventory, the Heavy of Team Fortress 2, among other averted Husky Russkie stereotypes, says that he happens to enjoy a nice peach bellini, and claims that the bubbles sometimes gives him headaches.
• In Brütal Legend the Heavy Metal loving humans of Ironheade are all beer drinkers. They even have a "Sacred Beer Tree" that naturally produces ice-cold lager. Once you get to the Playable Epilogue you can even visit their beach party and enjoy a beer with them.
  Eddie: How about when we get to town we have a big pow-wow with your whole army? We'll have a campfire, and I'll tell you all about what I do and where I came from over a big flagon of mead.
  Ophelia: What's a flagon of mead?
  Eddie: It's a drink. Aren't we in medieval times?
  Ophelia: Uhh... we only have beer. But you can have as many kegs as you want.
  Eddie: TO BLADEHENGE!
• From Overwatch 2, resident Mad Bomber Junkrat has a flask on his hip. What is it filled with? Ice cold boba tea.

Web Original

• In the various Mr. T Versus comics, Mr. T's exhortations for kids to drink their milk has been transformed into a full-on obsession with the drink, with him getting into many fights over milk, and the easiest way to get him on a plane is to drug his milk.
• Protectors of the Plot Continuum:
  • Agent Logan is addicted to iced tea, deprivation of which sends him into a homicidal rage.
  • Agent Kaguya is a tea ceremonist, but his actual favorite drink is milk and dairy in general due to being from Hokkaido.
• In Always a Hero, you'd better have a glass of orange juice waiting for Cora when she comes to visit. The pulpier, the better!
• Hot Shot from Scrub Club loves hot chocolate, which ties into his heat-related persona.

Web Videos

• Papa John's Pepsi Max are of legendary status in h3h3productions.
• Mountain Dew Baja Blast serves as this for the entire Thomas Wooden Railway Community, but especially for MrMPS.
• SuperMarioLogan: Black Yoshi loves grape Kool-aid and fried chicken. In "Black Yoshi's in Trouble!", to help Mario reform Black Yoshi, Craig the Devil convinced Black Yoshi that there's no Kool-aid or fried chicken in Hell.
• Brad Jones absolutely LOVES Crystal Pepsi. He loves it so much that he's trying to start a letter campaign to bring it back. Good news: It's back, or as near as makes no difference. Bad news: he can't drink it with his Jewish friends, because the brand is "Not See Kola".
• Yogscast: Simon Lane and Lewis Brindley also seem to drink tea quite a bit. Then again, they're British.

Western Animation

• The Flash's Rogues Gallery appears in one episode of Justice League Unlimited, planning a hit on The Flash in a Bad Guy Bar. After claiming to be, in their own words, "The hardest men in town", their drink orders are immediately revealed to consist of an Arnold Palmer (lemonade iced tea), a cherry coke, a decaf soy latte, and a glass of milk. What makes this funnier is the fact that only the milk is treated as an odd order. Captain Cold feels a need to justify it by saying his ulcer's been acting up.
• In The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! episode "Pirates of the Koopa", Mario and Luigi pose as pirates to infiltrate 'Blackbeard' Koopa's hideout. Luigi asks the bartender to "Gimme a milk." At their odd looks, Mario adds, "In a dirty glass!"

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