Chandigarh: The Union Territory of Chandigarh does not merely drink; it performs the act with gusto, consuming nearly 6.5 times the average national per capita liquor intake, under the proudly upheld Punjabi credo of Egg, Leg, and Peg – the egg for ballast, the chicken leg for bravado, and the peg for liquid momentum.Seemingly, even such indulgence in the City Beautiful, as Chandigarh calls itself, is governed by this carefully ordered ritual, honed over time.Latest statistics from the Confederation of Indian Alcoholic Beverage Companies (CIACB) revealed that the city’s 12.5-odd lakh residents consumed 23.02 lakh cases of country spirits, imported and Indian-made foreign liquor Financial Year 2024–25 or an average of 1.84 cases, or 22 bottles, per person.The Tribune newspaper, which published these statistics on Thursday (February 19), reported that over five financial years, from 2021 to January 31, 2026, 13.21 crore liquor bottles were sold in Chandigarh – averaging over eight bottles per person per year. The newspaper editorially noted that such robust – even bacchanalian – levels of consumption reflected “a compact, prosperous, urbanised territory with unusually high spending power and a liberalised retail environment.”Such staggering liquor sales in a single city, compared with state-wide consumption across India, are not just abstract statistics; they are visible in hundreds of liquor shops across Chandigarh, which also serves as the joint capital of Haryana and Punjab. These shops are no longer pokey, modest counters with dusty, half-empty shelves, but sprawling, mall-like brilliantly-lit establishments with glass façades, sleek display units, and aisles that resemble airport duty-free stores.On most days, they hum with brisk footfalls, but on weekends and around festivals like Holi and Diwali, a regular scrum prevails inside them. Cars double-park outside, while indoors, shopping baskets fill rapidly and customers manoeuvre toward the billing counters with the focus and resolve of centre-forwards in a determined pack.With patrons spoiled for choice, debates frequently flare up on these shop floors over which brand is superior, arguments weighing smoothness against strength and prestige against price – each opinion delivered with the authority of a seasoned connoisseur. Just as often, however, the discussion turns to something more practical: how much to buy. One bottle or two? A full case, just to be safe?In Chandigarh, the prevailing motto is simple as indicated by the CIACB survey: it’s better to have surplus stock than risk a shortage and for some, that more is less. Supplementing these grand liquor vends are a plethora of microbreweries that have mushroomed across city sectors over the past two decades, drawing comparable crowds. Formerly quiet restaurants now house copper tanks, long wooden tables and chalkboards confidently announcing seasonal ales. Together, the expansive liquor stores and bustling breweries suggest that in Chandigarh, drinking is no longer furtive or hurried; it is curated, social, and worn almost as a badge of urban celebration.As a decade-long resident of Chandigarh, I can attest that drinking in the City Beautiful is an article of faith – wielded with confidence and a certain solemnity, as if every peg not only elevates the mood but imparts profound wisdom on how the nation, and indeed the world, ought to be managed.Conversations at these convivial evenings gather, not merely in speed and volume, but in moral authority as well with each refill. By the second peg, infrastructure deficiencies are clinically diagnosed; by the third, national security is briskly recalibrated. Real estate prices soar and collapse within minutes as retired military officers – mostly colonels, brigadiers and generals – serving and former bureaucrats, agriculturists, and non-resident Punjabis home for the winter, amongst others, weigh in with expansive certainty.Humour arrives early at these gatherings and settles in for the evening- often loud, and occasionally outrageous. Laughter ricochets across bars, clubs, drawing rooms and balconies, and by the fourth vada – or large drink- verdicts on everything from geopolitics, societal ills and artificial intelligence are delivered with the finality of Supreme Court judgments.The Punjabi talent lies in laughing not just at others but at themselves – at their own excesses, bravado and inflated self-importance. And as the evening lengthens and the pegs multiply, the conversation inevitably drifts into territory that is cheerfully risqué and wildly embellished. Old tales surface of college escapades, regimental and diplomatic misadventures, narrowly avoided scandals and romantic heroics that somehow grow more daring with each retelling.Names are hinted at and identities theatrically disguised- though rarely convincingly, as the laughter grows louder, the gestures exaggerated and the denials progressively less persuasive. Suffice it to say that these stories, though uproariously funny and delivered with impeccable timing, are entirely unfit for reproduction on a respectable family news website – which is, perhaps, precisely what makes them so irresistible in the first place.Each peg – accompanied, of course, by the mandated egg and leg – carries with it the serene certainty among most imbibers that if only someone would listen – properly listen to them – all local and global problems would promptly resolve themselves. In short, the mulk or nation would be steadied, financial markets disciplined, traffic regulated, drains unclogged, and the wider world restored to neat and sensible order. What decades of policy drift and international complexity had failed miserably in resolving is invariably in these gatherings, settled effectively and comprehensively between whisky, vodka, rum or gin refills.Add to such sessions inherent Punjabi irreverence – that instinctive refusal to treat anything, however grand, as sacrosanct – and the combination turns incendiary. Politicians, including prime ministers, senior military men, judges, civil servants, tycoons and other public figures, are all fair game once the glasses begin to clink. Power is mocked, and authority becomes something to spar with, needle and tease into submission.For a few cheerful hours over drinks, these otherwise ordinary men turn into full-fledged sher da puttar’s – sons of tigers – voices louder, backs straighter, old stories suddenly heroic. Borders are secured, rivals dismissed, and the country set right. By morning, however, the tiger quietly disappears, plagued by a headache and resuscitated by black coffee; but for one evening at least, his roar was impressive.Alongside, in many such upper-crust Punjabi circles, English – or what passes for it – emerges as the default language of authority once imbibing gathers momentum. By the third drink, English grammar has been cavalierly set aside, making way for Pinglish – a robust hybrid of Punjabi and English vocabulary, delivered with absolute confidence.“Bha ji, scene hi kharaab ho gaya. Puri beizzati in front of everyone” (Brother, the whole situation has gone bad. Total humiliation in front of everyone) mixes easily with the reassuring “Tu tension na le, main handle kar lavanga” (You don’t worry, I’ll handle it).“Don’t act smart, mainu sab pata hai” (Don’t act clever, I know everything) competes with “Oh sochda hai ki he’s very vadda businessman, but asl vich oh jugaadu hai” (He thinks he’s a very big businessman, but in reality he’s just a fixer/improviser), followed inevitably by the clincher: “Chill kar yaar, phazool hyper na ho” (Relax, don’t get unnecessarily worked up).The real charm and magic of such Pinglish is its lyrical rhythm, with English providing the structure, Punjabi the punch. The verbs migrate, tenses wobble, but the sentiment conveyed is a perfect 10/10 of a polyglot that is less a language and more a performance – confident, loud, irreverent and entirely unfettered.Such imbibing also triggers ingenuity to evade the law.One apocryphal story, oft-repeated in Chandigarh’s drawing rooms, captures the city’s improvisational relationship with driving under the influence or DUI. It goes like this: an inebriated man driving home late one night spots a police naka or check-post up ahead and, some hundred yards short of it, pulls over, switches on the interior light, clambers into the back seat, and waits.After a short interval, a curious policeman approaches the stationary car and taps on the window. “Why are you sitting back there?” he asks.“My driver ran away,” the man replies, punctuated with hiccups.“Well then, go home,” the constable retorts.“How can I? I’m drunk. You drop me home,” comes the earnest response.Exasperated, the policeman orders him to drive off. And so the man does – having gamed the system with a straight face and a stagger.The story survives because it sounds about right and apposite. In Chandigarh, people drink freely but also talk their way through almost anything. Nothing is too dramatic; it is all taken in their stride – usually with an egg, a leg and one more peg.