Drink avoided by most ventriloquists (6,2,4)

I believe the answer is:

bottle of beer

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'drink' is the definition.
Both the definition and answer are singular nouns.
Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?

'avoided by most ventriloquists' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'by' could be 'of' and 'of' is located in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...

Can you help me to learn more?

I've seen this clue in The Globe and Mail and The Irish News.

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