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.