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in Dutch we say 'er is altijd een reden voor een borrel', which I want engraved on a whisky glass for my friend. How do you say 'There is always a reason for a drink' in Latin?

On the internet, I find 'semper enim potum' and I was wondering if this was correct?

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    Semper enim potum is not correct. Google Translate (if that's the source) practically never produces correct Latin.
    – TKR
    Commented Nov 21, 2020 at 20:05

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Translating as semper est bibendum could make a recognizable variant on Horace's famous nunc est bibendum, "now is the time to drink" (Ode 1.37).

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You give a valuable hint when saying you want this engraved on a whisky glass. Whisky is derived from Irish uisce beatha, which means water of life. This translates into Latin as aqua vitae, which is still recognisable in Danish akvavit.

If we replace reason with occasion (occasio), and we modify aqua into aquae because it has to be a dative, we're there:

Semper occasio aquae vitae.

Proost!

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Maybe, "semper est causa ad bibendum."

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    Wouldn't it be causa bibendi? I've never seen causa + ad
    – brianpck
    Commented Nov 23, 2020 at 15:04
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    @brianpck. I actually looked this up on PHI shortly after the question was posted. I found a couple of scattered examples of causa + ad + accusative – one in Terence, as I recall. Of course, the genitive is much more common.
    – cnread
    Commented Nov 23, 2020 at 23:41

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