Similarly to today perhaps, wine was the booze of choice for high society individuals. Fine wines were labelled with the date, vineyard and variety as the tax assessors requested, such as the ones found in Tutankhamun’s tomb.
Beer was the poison of the masses. Rich people also drank beer though... loads of it, in fact.
People loved to drink, as they do today, according to maximas written in the New Kingdom’s The Maxims of Ptahhotep or Instruction of Ptahhotep, a vizier under King Isesi of the Egyptian Fifth Dynasty (c. 2414-2375 BC).
These writings functioned as advice and were intended to be directed to his son. There are several copies available today; the Prisse Papyrus dating from the Middle Kingdom, at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, and two slightly different versions at the British Museum.
Ptahotep explains why he wrote these; he had reached old age and wanted to leave a legacy of ‘good sense’ instructions to his son. These are rules on how to be kind, just, peaceful, and on how to behave in the correct manner in general. Among those there were some pieces of advice on how bad your reputation gets (it goes down the drain, really), if you drink too much. Just like what happened to Charlie Sheen and his wife last Christmas...
