There are a lot of people who will tell you that drinking alcohol is a vice. Fuck them. They’re doing it wrong. This is not to say that alcohol can’t ruin your life and eventually kill you – it absolutely can, but so can Girl Scout Thin Mints® if you consume them irresponsibly. Fortunately, no one as of yet has figured out how to successfully inhale Thin Mints through a polyurethane hose attached to a funnel, so death by Thin Mints is relatively undramatic and drawn-out.
Learning to drink alcohol properly takes years of research and practice. The good news is that if you live to the age where you reach some level of proficiency, you’re probably also too old and decrepit to perform the idiotic stunts that seem like a great idea when you’re drinking. Truly, the safest policy when drinking is to make drinking your sole activity. When you’re too drunk to actually accomplish that, it’s time to sleep.
Sounds simple, eh? Not exactly, but to help you on your journey I give you:
Five Drinks That Changed My Life:
Schlitz Malt Liquor – When I was ten, my friend and I found an unopened six-pack of this stuff behind a honky-tonk. It had been heat-cured for a few days and had a really nice head. I think it’s called “The Bull” because it tastes like the taint of same. For five years I thought this was what all beer tasted like.
Trash Can Punch – aka Spodi, Wapatuli, Purple Passion, Thunderfuck, Cowboy Kool-Aid, Pink Panty Dropper, Hairy Buffalo. To the young and adventurous, these names sound really fun. To old people, they are huge red flags. Normally this stuff is used as an insidious substitute for rohypnol at frat parties. My last experience with it involved a drunken foot race through a field of fresh cow manure. I “won.”
Jack Daniel’s – My first attempt at being a sophisticated drinker involved regularly toting around a flask of this stuff as a college freshman, and ended shortly after I “invented” a drink called the J&W, which is a 1-1 mixture of Jack Daniel’s and A&W Root Beer. Laugh if you want. That shit is delicious. You’ll never want to stop drinking it – and you shouldn’t because the hangover is vicious – worse than a bottle of Boone’s Farm.
Texas Pride Beer – I was working a $6 an hour construction clean-up job at the time, so affordability was a real issue for me. Texas Pride is gone now, but at $1.25 a six-pack, it was easy to overlook the clearly visible detritus floating around in the bottom of the can. At least Lone Star chose to can it instead of releasing it unprocessed into the environment. Respek.
Tequila – When you suggest this liquor, a lot of people just shudder and mumble a border town name like Matamoros or Tijuana. That’s a true shame. My love affair with this spirit started on a canoe trip on the Colorado at about 8 o’clock in the morning. Two capsized canoes and a lost chain saw later, I was hooked. Drinking straight tequila earns you the cautious, uneasy respect of even hardcore drinkers – sort of like driving a really fucked up, dented car. However, if you’re trying to earn the respect of hardcore drinkers, you might want to reassess your priorities.
This article appears in July 5 • 2013.
