What is a serial killer;s favourite drink? You might think blood? Well you would be wrong... probably. Serial killers have incredibly similar tastes to me, to you, to everyone, they are (deep down) just "normal people" (sort of), so whether you're sat in a pub supping a pint, standing in a queue in the off-licence with a bottle of Chianti, or heading out for a boozy session, you have to ask yourself,  "what is a serial killer's favourite drink?" and do I share a preferred tipple with a mass murder. Murder Mile blog investigates...

Dennis Nilsen – Rum & Coke: Widely dubbed Britain’s most notorious serial killer, Nilsen would lure homeless men into his Muswell Hill lair with the promise of a meal, a place to sleep, companionship and a little libation – Nilsen’s favourite being Captain Morgan’s Black Label rum mixed with a full-fat Coke, ice but no slice. Seasonally, Nilsen was famous for his mulled wine, which - those who’ve been on my tour can testify – he boiled himself, but probably never drank.

​John Wayne Gacy – J&B Scotch: “The Killer Clown” would often drink himself into such an alcoholic stupor that – after a whole bottle of Justerini & Brooks (J&B) whiskey - he’d blackout, and would later claim not to remember any of his actions, during the 36 rapes and murders of young men he would go on to commit. Psychiatrists have questioned whether his need to “blackout” helped justify his homosexual fantasies, given that he was in fact a heterosexual. 

​Ian Brady & Myra Hindley – White Wine: Without doubt the most vile couple in Britain, but had we known how their thirsts were quenched, we’d probably have hated them more, as “The Moors Murderers” liked white wine; a cheap German Hock known as ‘Blue Nun’. Brady was also partial to brewing his own brand of beverage in a drum, full of vegetable scraps, wine dregs, sugar and alcohol). 

​Jeffrey Dahmer - Rum & Coke and Beer: “The Killer Cannibal” was a notoriously heavy drinker who’d lace the drinks of his victims with sleeping pills, before strangling and dismembering them. Dahmer would start the night on beer – Miller or Pabst – before moving onto blended scotch whiskey, or any brand of Jamaican rum, both with coke (any brand). 

​Dr Harold Shipman – Gin & Tonic: Dubbed “Dr Death”, the infamous Hyde GP, who was found guilty of murdering fifteen patients before his suicide (later confirmed as 218 victims… and still counting), he liked to relax after a hard day at work with a Gordon’s gin, with Indian tonic, ice and a slice. 

​Theodore “Ted” Bundy – Malt Liquor: Often being introverted, shy and retiring, many serial killers drink to dampen down their inhibitions before conducting any act which persons of sound mind would consider heinous. Bundy’s drink of choice was Mickey’s Big Mouth Malt Liquor… although, with a meal, he would be partial to a nice glass of red wine. 

​John George Haigh – Sherry: Although ‘The Acid Bath Murderer’ often claimed he drank a cup of blood from each of his victims – Haigh was a notorious fantasist and consummate liar – but would always partake of a glass or two of wine with dinner (red with meat, white with fish) as well as a sherry beforehand. But he would never, ever drink beer. He considered it “vulgar”, said the man who dissolved a woman in a vat of sulphuric acid, and then bragged about it. 

​Peter Sutcliffe – Beer with Whiskey Chasers: “The Yorkshire Ripper” had simple tastes, often never sticking to one brand, but instead opting for whatever was cheapest or - as a lorry driver – limited to whatever was in tonight’s pub of choice, whether Skol, Carling Black Label, Harp, Hofmeister or McEwans, with a neat shot of Famous Grouse, or… gulp… a rum and coke. Currently as an inmate in Broadmoor prison, his favourite tipple is Diet Coke.

​Anthony Hardy – Rum & Coke: Not wishing to cast aspersions now, but like many serial killers listed above, Anthony “The Camden Ripper” Hardy was prone to drinking rum and coke (no preferred brands, but in lethally high quantities, so he often pick the supermarket’s cheapest) as well as whiskey and coke. 

​Aileen Wuornos – Black Coffee & Miller Beer: The Florida prostitute and serial killer, who claimed that all of her seven victims were punters, and each murder was in self-defence, loved nothing more than a black coffee throughout the day and a few Miller beers at night. Wuornos loved black coffee so much, that was all she had as her final mean on death row. Read more about the last meals of Death Row inmates. 

​Edmund Kemper – Tequila: Dubbed ‘The Co-ed Killer’, Edmund Kempner (serial killer, necrophile and cannibal) would often knock back shots of Tequila or Mezcal in a bar called The Jury Room with some of his friends from the Santa Cruz police department. Unlike the serial killers above, Edmund drank the tequila neat, never with a mixer such as Coke, and often in high quantities with little effect. Kempner had an IQ of 145. Read about more serial killers with abnormally high IQs here. 

​Dr Thomas Neil Cream – Guinness: Known as “The Lambeth Poisoner”, Dr Thomas Neil Cream, a man of ample means and supposed respectability would lure prostitutes into his home with the promise of money, warmth, a “good time” and – they would hope – a drink which reflected his refinement, whether white wine, champagne or a sherry? But no. The appropriately named Cream treated them to a frothy white-headed bottle of Guinness… laced with Strychnine. 

Obviously, this article is entirely non-scientific but, if you know anyone who’s partial to a rum & coke? Run! And if - having read this - you're worried that (given your preferred tipple) that you might be a serial killer in the making, feel free to check your name, job title, IQ, music tastes and diet against other mass murderers. Oh, and if any drinks companies would like to hire me to work on their next advertising campaign, call me. 

Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten quirky & unusual things to do in London” and featuring 18 murderers, 3 serial killers, across 21 locations, totalling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk.

Switch on your television, pop on the radio, or open any newspaper, and you’ll be confronted with a plethora of horrifying images of war, murder, genocide, death, disease and terrorist atrocities, many of which are abroad, some of which occur in your own country, and a few even happen “just down the road”. Which begs the question – “how safe am I?”

Well, safer than you think. According to the Office of National Statistics, the odds on a western citizen being involved in a terrorist attack is 1:20,000,000 (one in twenty million), the odds of being murdered is 1:400,000 (one in four hundred thousand), and the chance you’ll be a serial killer’s next victim is 1:98,000,000 (one in ninety-eight million), with the odds of winning the national lottery being 1:14,000,000 - I know which one I'd prefer. 

In 2015, in the United Kingdom, roughly 300 people (out of a population of 64 million) were murdered, a figure that year-on-year is steadily falling, with the vast majority of murders not being premeditated, often involving alcohol or drugs, and – if you are a sex-worker - you are forty-two times more likely to be killed than anyone else. So, how safe are you? Well, very safe.

With these odds, you might live forever, just as long as you don’t go outside, go to work, take a shower, drink any water, eat any food, or breathe any air… the result of which will kill you. Life is a very dangerous pursuit, by simply being awake we take our lives in our hands. But how dangerous is life? Very… if you’re not careful.

But even that doesn’t cover the really dangerous pursuits in life, including: snowboarding with the odds on dying being 1:2million, skiing 1:1.4m, swimming 1:1m, running 1:1m, bungee-jumping 1:500,000, cycling 1:140,000, sky-diving 1:100,000, scuba-diving 1:34000, boxing 1:2200, hand-gliding 1:560, Grand Prix racing 1:100, and base-jumping 1:60.

​And neither does it cover some of the real oddities, such as: death by computer game 1:100million, death by nuclear explosion 1:10million, drowning in your own bath 1:685,000, an earthquake 153,587, an accident at work 1:43500, and… having a dinner party, the odds of you dying is 1:100,000 (including alcohol/food poisoning, accident, electrocution and drowning).

So, how safe are you, really? As safe as you want to be. But you’ll be no safer, sitting inside your own home, watching the news, and worrying about all the horrible things which could – but probably won’t – kill you. Instead... book a ticket to Murder Mile Walks. Hoorah!

What's your favourite tipple? A sparkling glass of bubbly, a glass of full-bodied red, a shot of peaty Perthshire Scotch, a lewdly named cocktail with an abundance of fancy fruit, colourful umbrellas and fizzing sparklers, that it would make a Soho drag-act blush, or... would you prefer a beer?

I mean, with the bank holiday weekend quickly approaching, you're probably looking for something seriously fun, quirky, curious, original and different to do in London or Soho, and rightly you'll deserve to treat yourself to a few light libations to quench your well-earned thirst after a hard week at work, am I right? And what's better than a nice pint of beer? Mmm.

How about FREE BEER!!!???

And not just one free beer, or two, or even ten, but a free unlimited supply of London's finest, fullest, lightly frothed and most famous beer, enough to last you a lifetime. How about that? Would that quell your thirst? Well, in 1814, your dream came true.
​

On the 17th October 1814, a colossal beer vat at The Horse Shoe Brewery situated on Tottenham Court Road, ruptured, spilling 135,000 gallons of locally brewed Porter Ale, after the metal hoops holding the barrel together snapped. The sheer weight and force of 610,000 litres of frothing and fizzing fine ale rushing through the vaults, was so overwhelming, that it toppled another 8 to 9000 barrels of Porter, and formed a fifteen foot tidal wave - totalling 323,000 gallons (1,470,000 litres) - of beer, which burst into the city streets.

But, this free supply of booze wasn't a cause for celebration or merriment. There wasn't singing and dancing in the streets as a tsunami of creamy dark ale surged out of the brewery, down Tottenham Court Road and into the awaiting mouths of anyone who happened to be yawning, talking or conveniently a tad thirsty (having always held their trap open, in case any such ludicrous situation should unfold - because you never know?). No.

Unfortunately, the area surrounding the Horse Shoe Brewery, known as St Giles' Rookery - an area of poverty and boozing that inspired Hogarth’s Gin Lane - was packed full of alms houses and tenements for the poor, sick and destitute. And as the Great Beer Flood exploded, a large proportion of those 1.4 million litres of still sticky ale, completely decimated two houses, crushed the wall of the Tavistock Arms Pub, trapping fifteen year old worker Eleanor Cooper amidst the rubble, and flooded the basements on George Street and New Street, where many families were living, killing a mother and daughter who were taking afternoon tea, sweeping both away, and surging through a back room of mourners who had gathered for a funeral wake.

Many family members crawled onto the tops of floating furniture in a bid to survive, but some were not so lucky. Of those who perished were: ​Ann Saville (aged 53), Eleanor Cooper (15), Catherine Butler (63), Elizabeth Smith (27), Mary Mulvey (30), Sean Duggins (29), Hannah Bamfield (4), and Thomas Mulvey (3), having either drowned or died from their injuries.

And although watchmen at the Brewery made a pretty penny or two by allowing the morbid hawkers who came in their hundreds to marvel at the macabre spectacle (of the ruined beer vats), many locals simply stood around in hushed silence, keeping as silent as possible so the screams of those still trapped could be heard. 

A jury cleared the brewers (Henry Meux & Co.) of any wrongdoing, and the incident was set aside as "an unavoidable act of God", with Meux & Co receiving a refund for the excise duty they had paid to produce the beer they had lost, but which had lost so many lives. The Horse Shoe Brewery was soon back into production, making the infamous dark porter ale, until it closed in 1921, and was replaced by the Dominion Theatre.

Still thirsty? ​

Looking for something quirky, curious, original & unusual to do in London or Soho this bank holiday weekend? Try Murder Mile Walks. And having read this blog post, I'll give you 30% OFF all tickets, simply by typing ​MULLEDW1NE into the booking widget above. 

Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten quirky & unusual things to do in London” and featuring 18 murderers, 3 serial killers, across 21 locations, totalling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk.