Now, don’t get me wrong: we Wel­ling­tonis­tas are not usu­ally parsi­mo­ni­ous when it comes to pay­ing for drinks. On the oth­er hand, we’re a canny and logic­al bunch, and it only takes about 10 free glasses of house wine to save up enough for a Mega Mai Tai, so in the long run it pays to seek out gratis grog.

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Let’s start with the obvi­ous: gal­lery open­ings and launches. You can get lucky by simply cruis­ing the streets on a mid­week night seek­ing the tell-tale sounds of clink­ing glasses and post­struc­tur­al­ist dis­course, but ded­ic­ated cheapskates know that the best way to guar­an­tee res­ults is to get on the mail­ing lists.

It’s also worth think­ing bey­ond the obvi­ous ven­ues: the Film Archive often has free enter­tain­ment (bands, motor­bikes…) to go with the drinks, and the exhib­i­tions are in a darkened room, which makes it easi­er to avoid hav­ing to talk about the art. Thursday night’s launch of “Roy Orbison in Cling­film” at Mighty Mighty offered free Jae­ger­meister, though it came with a catch: you had to endure mum­mi­fic­a­tion in glad­wrap before you received your shot. It was worth it.

Wine tast­ings are anoth­er clas­sic, though it takes a bit of per­sist­ence and guile to add up to a full glass. Wine­seeker is one of our favour­ites, not just because of the great selec­tions and love­able staff, but because their daily tast­ings can get quite gen­er­ous if you ask nicely. It still won’t be a huge amount, but it’s a great way to kick off the after­noon.

But our most reg­u­lar source of free booze is quiz nights. You do, how­ever, have to earn your right to cash­less carous­ing by actu­ally answer­ing enough ques­tions cor­rectly to get in the top three. For that reas­on we can­not recom­mend the Tues­day night quizzes at the South­ern Cross, des­pite the live Ham­mond organ accom­pani­ment, refresh­ing absence of sports rounds and cer­tain people’s obses­sion with the quiz mas­ter: the Wel­ling­tonista team is always there, so you’ll have to settle for second or third. Sorry.