There Will Be Blood : Was that water or hard liquor he was chugging?

At the very end of the film

seems to be vodka, the bottle had some print on it if you notice.

I thought it was water, the way he was chugging it with no affect afterwards; after a night of heavy drinking, he was bound to be dehydrated, thus he would crave water.

... or more vodka, if he's a alcoholic.

I would say water. I don't think anyone could chug vodka or gin like that.

Water. Though he does pull a small flask out of his pocket for a swig.

No that was liquor. He by that point in his life was a true professional alcoholic. He took it like a real O.G. remember while he is chugging Eli goes "ooohhhhhhhhhh" lol.

It's water.

The only bottles that existed back then were the glass ones that other things came in, so they would often be reused as water vessels. Daniel has never been shown once drinking clear alcohol through the entire movie. He drinks more and more the older he gets, but its always whiskey of some kind.

In the bowling alley you can see the remnants of his previous drinking session, as there are numerous dark bottles with labels standing around, much like the bottles Eli pours the drinks from at the bar. No clear bottles like the water bottle, just the one.

Daniel drinks from his flask to wake himself up and feel OK, because he is after all an alcoholic, but he wants to be mostly sober for this encounter, because he's going to enjoy it. So he refuses further drink when Eli offers it, and instead guzzles water. I don't care what kind of alcoholic you are, the human body still needs water and alcohol is a dehydrating agent. When you wake up from a bender, you need water at some point, or at least beer.

I agree, and throughout the film Daniel swigged liquor from his flask. He never walked around with a full bottle of liquor while working or alone in his office. If that had been liquor and if he was able to gulp large amounts of Vodka in that fashion he would have died decades ago from alcohol poisoning

Water, he was drinking booze from the flask. He had drank profusely the night before so he was trying to get hydrated, I do the same

At first, I thought 'my god, is that alcohol he's guzzling", he'd be dead'.or is it water? Further in the conversation with Eli, he explains drainage.

He says he's drained all the oil and water from Brandy's acreage. (He had even mentioned when originally making the deal, the community would be enriched by both the oil and the water.

He even explains with his analogy of a milkshake that he alone has the straw.

So, I think he was drinking water, both because he was dehydrated and to show he had good drinking water.....to pour more coals on Eli's head.

Just sayin'

He was so far gone into self-destructive lunacy, I think he could have been drinking some kind of white lightning. With a hardened tolerance, alcoholics can chug crazy stuff like that. Although it does seem unrealistic for anyone to chug as much as Daniel Plainview did in the movie, what would be the point showing him chug water? The guy is clearly building a tolerance to alcohol throughout the entire movie. And he's a totally self-indulgent psycho by the end. He could have been drinking booze from his flask and chugging either water or moonshine from the bottle. I really think it's up in the air. I personally feel like it was supposed to be alcohol.