Stories about drinking episodes involving da Silva are legion. After one night on the town when he was a member of Congress in the late 1980s, da Silva got off the elevator at the wrong floor of the building where he lived at the time and tried to batter down the door of an apartment he mistakenly thought was his own, according to politicians and journalists here, including some who are former residents of the building.
"Under Lula, the capirinha has become the national drink by presidential decree," the daily Folha de Sao Paulo said last month in an article about da Silva's association with alcohol and referring to a cocktail made with sugar-cane liquor.
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