If Cockburn had to guess, he would say Swift developed a liking for the strong stuff after she swam “in a Champagne sea” in 2017. This is the same year she admitted to spilling wine in a bathtub while drunk and drinking beer out of plastic cups. She once drank old-fashioneds and focused on drinking while her love interest at the time was more focused on thinking. Later on in the same album, she met a new love interest in a bar, asked a former love interest to make her a drink, got drunk and made fun of the way Alwyn, presumably, talked and compared one of her boyfriend’s eyes to liquor. She also professes a fondness for Tennessee whiskey and informs us she can be found in a pub.

It was in 2020, however, that Swift really seems to have found refuge in the bottle. It was during Covid, when everyone was drinking more than we should. On her albums evermore and Folklore, Swift refers to her “spite and my tears and my beers and my candles,” “sitting in an airport bar,” “champagne problems,” “that dive bar,” “getting wasted,” being drunk under a streetlight and kissing in downtown bars, being drunk on something stronger than the drinks in the bar, getting drunk “but it’s not enough,” and drunk crying in the back of the car coming from the bar.

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