A reader writes:
It's certainly true that Americans usually drink beer too cold to cover up for the flavorlessness of the megabrewed "pale lagers". These taste terrible especially when warm and flat, but flavorful craft beers don't have this problem. I prefer lots of drinks with ice: most sodas are too syrupy and sweet out of the can, and ice helps dilute them. Or take that quintessential Southern beverage: iced tea. If you're outside for a couple hours in sweltering 100-degree heat, you'll want a drink that's half ice. Besides, the ice quickly melts anyway. Germans don't have this situation.
Another asks:
Have you ever read A Confederacy of Dunces? Remember the "valve"?
The pyloric valve, called "il piloro" in Italian, is something that Italians pay a certain amount of attention to (just as they pay attention to other fussy health things, like the slightest draft that they are convinced will give them a raging pneumonia.) All Italians are aware of their "piloro", whereas I don't think most Americans have the faintest idea it even exists. Folk wisdom here is that the coldness of the ice will cause a spasm or spasms in the "piloro", causing indigestion or even a deadly congestion of some kind.
Another fun fact about the "piloro": When Italians want to say someone is getting on their nerves, or that they can't stand someone, they'll say that person "gets on my pyloric valve" ("mi sta sul piloro.") A funny incident was recounted by an American ex-pat who was hosting a back-yard party, only to have her Italian neighbor enter the scene with an annoyed outburst about how Americans were going to "kill us all with their iced drinks!!"
Strangely, this maxim does not hold for limoncello, gelato or "Italian ices".
A dubious but fun story:
I once heard a possibly apocryphal tale on this subject from a professor in a German history class. The hyperinflation of 1923 was so drastic that the prices of meals and drinks would increase between the time they were ordered and the time patrons finished and paid. Practical Germans thus ordered a round of drinks as soon as they arrived at an establishment and paid immediately. The last few drinks were inevitably warm by the time one got around to them, leading to the penchant Germans adopted that summer for warm drinks.
Another tale:
This thread reminds me of my Mom’s trip to Europe in the 1950s. She was traveling with a group of people and they were at a bar in Italy. One person in their group ordered a scotch on the rocks. He finished his drink and left. She and the rest of the members of her group witnessed the bartender reach into the glass with his hands, scoop out the ice cubes, and rinse them off with a little tap water. They were then put back into the freezer. My Mom guessed this was done so they would have ice cubes for the next customer who wanted a drink with ice.
Another reader:
A far better question is: Why is it so hard to maintain adequate hydration in Europe?
– Often the only available water is bottled
– They don't give you water in restaurants unless you ask for it
– Glasses are teeny-tiny compared to ours
– They design their cars, unaccountably, without cupholders
– They punish hydration by making bathrooms so few and far between.
– They seem never to have discovered the drinking fountain
The Dish 