have a bottle—have a drink; take part in social drinking:
- There’s a definite feeling of anticipation here as the boss slips his credit card behind the bar or your mate says “Go on, let’s have a bottle.”
have a lot of bottle—(coll.) have the courage to do smth. difficult:
- Not many people could lose six world finals and come back for more—Jimmy has a lot of bottle.
Cf.: lose one’s bottle—(coll., also: bottle it) lose one’s courage:
- That conservative fool lost his bottle when he tried to face down the coal mining unions.