So I have this character in this story who is completely straight-edge, doesn't even drink caffeine. But he's mildly insane anyway (one of those brilliant eccentrics), and he's having an especially bad incident right now. ("Gone completely off his rocker" is close, but not entirely accurate.) Because of this incident, he goes to a liquor store to buy alcohol to get drunk. But his knowledge of alcohol is severely limited, because he has never watched TV in his life, nor gotten on the Internet, and has never been around anyone who drank. So he's asking questions that make the liquor store guy worried that he'll overdose himself, and subsequently lies about what is the hardest stuff available for the character's protection. I don't want him to be so completely naive that he accepts beer as the hardest stuff they have, but having heard of beer and of wine, and knowing that there are harder alcohols (but not knowing what they are called) is, essentially, the limit of his knowledge. I've been trying to find a list of alcohols by proof to figure out which one to use, but I'm afraid that my own knowledge of alcohol is not far beyond my character's knowledge. I know what some of the hardest alcoholic beverages are, but the rest I don't know the proofs of. Any suggestions? Right now I'm leaning towards wine coolers.
EDIT: Found the one I'm going to use. Zima! (The story is comedy.)
