I read somewhere that you should marry your best friend. I don’t know if that’s true, but the idea behind it is definitely true of beer. That is why I endorse the 40-ounce bottle of malt liquor — a.k.a. “The 40” — a.k.a. “the fo-dog” — a.k.a. — your best friend and lifelong companion for party-going.

The 40 might not be the most elegant, charming or sexy choice of beverage. Hell, it might be kind of fat. But everyone needs something on which to hold, and the 40 is always there. You don’t have to be rich to cut up with the 40. It accepts you and your $3.25 just the way you are.

First off, what is a 40? I know some of you have not yet passed 21 years on the Earth and therefore have no familiarity with strong drinks, so I will elaborate.

Malt liquor is a type of beer, but what we call beer is brewed from barley, oat, hops and other foods that horses eat. Malt liquor comes from real food, like corn and wheat, that people eat. It is like the Franzia of beer. It also has about 8 percent alcohol, instead of 5 percent, like beer. Now, for some reason, in every place and every age that man has wet his gullet with malt liquor, he has preferred to drink it in the largest possible container. It is a rule.

Sometimes, malt liquor comes in 16-ounce cans — heavy enough with which to exercise. It’s the biggest size of cans in the world. Other times, malt liquor comes in titanic 40-ounce bottle drums, if you will. This is three and a half times a normal beer bottle, for a consumer who is three and a half times the man. Also, because there’s 50 percent more alcohol, the 40 packs the punch of five or six beers.

A 40 is so big that you keep the 40 in the paper bag in which it’s sold, so you can hold on better. But the paper bag is not just a necessity — it engenders mystique. Wine also comes in big bottles, but no one walks around with a bottle of wine in a paper bag. Even drinking wine straight from the bottle feels weird. You’d want to pour it in a glass no matter how cheap the wine is.

On the other hand, a paper bag is the 40’s natural gown. It’s naked without the paper bag, and if you go so far as to peel the label off … well, that’s just pornographic. Meanwhile, it is a historical fact that malt liquor has never been poured into a glass. Go ahead and say it: “I’ll have a tall glass of Four O Malt Liquor, please.” It sticks in the throat.

Now, when you roll up to the party with the 40 in hand, literally every dude will gape and nod at the 40. It’s like you walked in with a falcon on your shoulder. They’ll say, “What up? Rockin’ the 40 ounce!” Through all smiles, these dudes fear the 40, for it is grand and linked to rappers of fierce renown — awesome men who replenish their fluids with little else.

Others at the party will have good beers, which everyone calls “brews,” because these are the only types of beer that are brewed. They have names like, “Sand Bag Summer-in-a-Leap-Year Chrysanthemum Ale.” The problem with brews is that people constantly ask to take a sip and steal them from the fridge. Mononucleosis and heist are the brew’s constant company.

In contrast, once you start on your 40, no one asks to take a sip. The reason is partly that the specter of backwash is too glaring, but mainly the signature taste of malt liquor sears the dainty palates of lesser men. Everyone who can handle the 40 already has one.

Another peril of beers is that you must be careful for what you wish. Some beers are made especially for dandy ladymen. Sipping on the wrong beverage can get you banned from the armed forces.

Not so for 40s.

As long as you clutch a fo-dog of any make at all, you can traipse — nay, skip — merrily through a Klan meeting in a “Sexy She-Devil Costume” and evoke naught but the deepest awe in your fellows. There is simply no “ladyman” major at 40 Ounce University, no direct flights to Ladyman International Airport on 40 Ounce Airways, no hit single from The Ladymen on the Top 40 Ounce Countdown. That’s because, while brewing malt liquor to strength depends on copious amounts of sugar, spice and everything nice are kept at great distance — replaced instead by lion piss and everything needlessly aggressive.

The most important thing you can learn about 40s, though, is to drink responsibly. With just one 40, you’re already drinking like a man. There’s no need to die like one.

E-mail Lewis at [email protected].