“Here’s mud in your eye!”

The exact origin is unknown, but the expression was appearing in American print by at least 1911. One popular theory connects it to horse racing: the horse in front kicks mud into the eyes of the riders behind, making the toast something like, Here’s hoping I finish ahead of you. Whatever its origin, by the early twentieth century it was firmly established as another way of saying “Cheers!”

So basically: good health—and I hope my horse beats yours.

“Here’s looking at you, kid.”

Humphrey Bogart made the line famous as Rick Blaine in the 1942 film Casablanca, repeatedly saying it to Ingrid Bergman’s Ilsa.

Few people can pull this toast off without immediately attempting a Humphrey Bogart impression.

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“Down the hatch!”

This drinking expression comes from nautical language. A ship's hatch is an opening through which cargo is lowered into the hold—so sending a drink “down the hatch” humorously turns your throat into the cargo entrance. The U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command traces the drinking expression to sailors around the turn of the twentieth century.

Apparently your stomach is the cargo hold.

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“Bottoms up!”

Pretty literal: tip your glass high enough and eventually its bottom points toward the ceiling. The expression was being used as a drinking toast by at least 1877.

Instructions don't get much easier than that.

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“Cheers!”

Today, cheers may be the world's most recognizable English-language drinking toast. It grew from words associated with mood, spirit, encouragement, and good wishes and eventually became the wonderfully efficient drinking word we know today.

One syllable. Everybody understands. Drink.

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​Famous Drinking Lines

“I like to have a Martini,
Two at the very most.
Three, I’m under the table;
Four, I’m under the host.”

—Attributed to Dorothy Parker

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“I drink to your charm, your beauty, and your brains—which gives you a rough idea of how hard up I am for a drink.”

—Attributed to Groucho Marx

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“Everybody has to believe in something. I believe I’ll have another drink.”

—Often attributed to W. C. Fields

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Classic & Funny Toasts

“I drink to your health in public,
I drink to your health alone.
I drink to your health so often,
I’m beginning to worry about my own.”

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“It’s better to have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.”

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“Here’s Champagne for our real friends—and real pain for our sham friends.”

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“Here’s to living single and drinking double.”

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“There are several good reasons for drinking,
And one has just entered my head.
If a man can’t drink while he’s living,
How the hell can he drink when he’s dead?”

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“Here’s to you, as good as you are;
Here’s to me, as bad as I am.
But as good as you are,
And as bad as I am,
I’m as good as you are,
As bad as I am!”

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“Another candle on your cake?
Well, that’s no cause to pout.
Be glad that you have strength enough
To blow the darn things out!”

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“To our wives and girlfriends—may they never meet!”

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“May we never go to hell—but always be on our way.”

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“May your glass be ever full.

May the roof over your head be always strong.

And may you be in heaven half an hour

before the devil knows you’re dead.”

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“Here’s to the nights we’ll never remember with the friends we’ll never forget.”

 

“To absent friends.”

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“May all your joys be real joys, and all your pains Champagne.”

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“Here’s to alcohol: the cause of—and solution to—all of life’s problems.”​