Act unaided and aim to drink vermouth before lunchtime? (2,2,5)
I believe the answer is:
go it alone
'act unaided' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'aim to drink vermouth before lunchtime?' is the wordplay.
'aim' becomes 'goal' (I've seen this before).
'to drink' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'vermouth' becomes 'it' (short for 'Italian vermouth' as in 'gin and it').
'before' says to put letters next to each other.
'lunchtime?' becomes 'one' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'goal' going around 'it' is 'goital'.
'goital'+'one'='GO IT ALONE'
'and' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for go it alone that I've seen before include "Take something on, eschewing any help" , "Proceed without the help of others" , "Act independently" , "Act on one's own" , "Take something on on one's own" .)