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Rihanna with her prominently displayed – and very flashy – flask at the 2017 Grammy Awards in Los Angeles.Christopher Polk

The question

I noticed Rihanna drinking from a hip flask at the Grammy Awards. Isn't the point of flasks to keep them hidden? I found it tacky.

The answer

That was a hoot, wasn't it? The pop princess seemed to be caught belting back shots all evening at the 2017 Grammys from her prominent seat near the front of the stage at Los Angeles's Staples Center. I don't believe there are rules for hip-flask etiquette, though. It depends on context, and when you're Rihanna, you get to make up the rules you want.

That's especially true on a night when you end up losing in all eight categories for which you're nominated. The merciless camera was cutting to the Barbadian-born superstar a lot, and I suspect it made for one long evening for the gifted singer. A bit of fortification – assuming she was packing something stiffer than Evian (I'm guessing it was one of her favourites, Jameson Irish Whiskey) – was in order. No security guard was going to escort Lady RiRi out of the Staples Center on Grammy night for brandishing an open container.

Besides, did you catch a good glimpse at that flask? It looked as though it had been encrusted with a year's output from a South African diamond mine. There's not much point to pack all that bling if you're going to hide the thing.

Incidentally, it was not the only flask I spotted at the Grammys. As part of a comedy farce on stage, host James Corden, pretending to look nervous, was offered a flask by a performer standing next to him but silently declined with the wave of an arm.

Although we often associate the hip flask with contraband and the need to keep alcohol concealed from authorities (either inside a pocket or, famously during Prohibition, tucked into a garter), the item is just an old-school, mobile nerve-calming device – the smartphone of the Victorian era. It even enjoys a certain aristocratic association in history – with trekking or hunting in the British countryside. Some Scotch whisky distilleries, such as The Macallan, to this day sell company-branded models for on-the-go imbibing. (Insert your own joke here about what a Scotsman wears under his kilt.)

Say what you will about this iconic canteen, but Rihanna clearly knows how to put the "hip" in "hip flask."

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