Life of Johnson: More wine

Boswell says that Johnson could only abstain completely or drink (or eat) too much, though when he drank too much it was in private. His explanation for drinking to excess in private is all too understandable:

Johnson: I require wine, only when I am alone. I have then often wished for it, and often taken it.
Spottiswoode: What, by way of a companion, sir?
Johnson: To get rid of myself, to send myself away.

He adds that "wine makes a man better pleased with himself," though often less pleasing to others, and adds a reason that explains why, if I have to go to a party, I go straight for a beer:

Wine gives a man nothing. It neither gives him knowledge nor wit; it only animates a man, and enables him to bring out what a dread of the company has repressed. It only puts in motion what has been locked up in frost.

He adds, "this may be good, or it may be bad," but when the alternative is a frosty lack of ease, I am willing to risk the bad. Boswell in this sense acted on Johnson like wine, prompting him to talk freely, even posing inane questions just to stir Johnson into action. Another friend said of Johnson that he was like a ghost, only speaking when spoken to. I did not know that ghosts were like that, but it shows how generally silent Johnson was without the influence of wine or Boswell. When Johnson said, "A man should cultivate his mind so as to have that confidence and readiness without wine, which wine gives," I think it is a worthy sentiment that nevertheless represents Johnson's hope for himself, not his actual behavior. He was a great one for resolutions, even long into old age, despite recognizing that men achieved little with resolutions. If Johnson's astoundingly cultivated mind could not break the ice dam without help, regardless of his resolutions, I think that disability must be intrinsic to certain minds. In much company, too, the ability to take equal part in conversation decreases with greater cultivation.

Though it does not mean much, it is funny that when he was a "water-drinker," Johnson "supposed every body who drank wine to be elevated," that is, plastered. I would also like to know whether "wine" in all these discussions means only wine, or includes spirits and beer, since they go unmentioned. The details (cellars, vintages, bumpers) are all of wine, but it is odd not to hear anything at all about the others, especially since one of Johnson's great friends, Mr. Thrale, was a wealthy brewer.