Spanish-born film-maker Luis Buñuel felt he had a moral obligation to be playful with reality. In his Surrealist films he replaces chairs with toilet seats, eyeballs are slashed and dream sequences dominate. However, contrary to the free thinking that characterised the Surrealists, Buñuel had one subject on which his views were completely rigid: how, when and where to drink alcohol.

Buñuel was educated by Jesuits and seemed to transfer religious fervour from Catholicism to alcohol. He claims never to have been an alcoholic, but was certainly devoted to drink. An entire chapter of his autobiography is dedicated to alcohol and bars - for Buñuel, 'an exercise in solitude'. His daily dry martini was begun the night before and made with English gin and Noilly Prat. For Buñuel, alcohol produced 'a high that helps me live and work'. The martinis obviously had a cumulatively good effect on his work, since Buñuel made his best films in old age, but not on his health: he died at the age of 83 from cirrhosis of the liver.