Ah, England — it’s a small country but a great one to drink in. It’s the country of dry gin, pub ale, Wimbledon, cold Martinis, David Beckham’s right foot and the annoying yet enduring Christmas rom-com Love Actually. Every single Shakespeare play features alcohol, Churchill was a prolific boozer and Sean Connery had the entire globe ordering their Martinis shaken, not stirred. Even the teens in Harry Potter, like so many English kids before them, grew up hanging in a pub.

In a country where the local pub is a memorable after-school activity for a large part of the population, drinking culture weaves its way through all areas of culture, be it sports, politics, art or simply the art of the dinner party. Much of the sentiment surrounding England’s modern drinking scene traces back to what was happening just before America’s shut down completely during Prohibition in the 1920s. At that time, if you wanted to head out for a tipple, the lower and middle class went to their friendly local pub or inn. Meanwhile, the wealthiest Brits only imbibed what was served by the staff in their homes. If they ever drank outside private estates, it’s because they were traveling, in which case they would drink at the finest hotel bars in London.

At the beginning of the last century, drinking culture was split into two parts that marked the ends of a spectrum: loud pints at the pub used to efficiently erase the toils of the day and refined cocktails at hotel bars used to signify social status. For decades, the ends of this spectrum have been inching closer to each other with luxurious countryside inns, trendy wine bars and mixology-forward restaurants filling the gap between them.