This a different sort of snakebite to the diabolical drink – but both will leave you with a sore head.

Being a guy who always has a book on the go, from time to time I’ve been reading a British novel and come a drink called Snakebite, and another one called a Diesel, but never knew what they were.

Now I do know – and they sound revolting. Snakebite is a mix of two drinks I try and avoid – lager and alcoholic cider. To me that sounds like a sure-fire way to make too already-bad drinks even worse. Seems it was popular in the 1980s, where uni students had the dumb idea that a pint of snakebite would get you drunk faster than drinking a pint of lager or cider on its own.

As for a Diesel, well, that’s even more disgusting. That’s when you take Snakebite and add a shot of blackcurrant cordial to it. Sounds even worse than an alcopop.

What’s the go here?: For those who have just stumbled across this post, I’m going through the illuminating Oxford Companion to Beer (OCB) and posting an entry for every letter. Why? Because I have a copy at home but hadn’t really gone through it page by page and I figured this would be an exercise that would force me to do that.