The Crudest Era In Cocktail History
April 23, 2018 11:37 AM   Subscribe

The 1980s--"precisely the nadir of bartending in the twentieth century". Brought to you by Peachtree Schnapps, “the liquor industry’s equivalent of Michael Jackson’s Thriller," and the Flavor Generation.
posted by Hypatia (116 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
My wife didn't have a bachelorette, but the night before the wedding she and her best friend/maid of honor did blowjob shots together at a party we had after the rehearsal dinner. In hindsight I'm surprised the slightly-seedy Irish pub where we were actually had whipped cream on hand.
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:46 AM on April 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


Just what on earth did William S. Burroughs have against Thriller?
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 11:49 AM on April 23, 2018 [14 favorites]


Just what on earth did William S. Burroughs have against Thriller?

yeah???
posted by supermedusa at 11:56 AM on April 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


I appreciate all the low-key burns on the Boomers in this article.
posted by tobascodagama at 11:58 AM on April 23, 2018 [13 favorites]


Just what on earth did William S. Burroughs have against Thriller?

Jealousy, I imagine. William Burroughs spent his life regretting he wasn't Michael Jackson. It's tragic, really.

Most of the sweet cocktails of the 80s were disgusting even then, but, boy, those Fuzzy Navels went down smoothly. I just think of the summer of '85 and I can smell them.
posted by octobersurprise at 12:00 PM on April 23, 2018 [3 favorites]


Of course, when you're drenched in Drakkar Noir and the atmosphere of every bar is thick enough with Benson & Hedges Menthol Light 100s smoke that walking through is like plunging through a jiggly jaundiced gaseous slab of nascent cancer, your senses are likely too overwhelmed to appreciate subtlety in your booze.
posted by sonascope at 12:04 PM on April 23, 2018 [58 favorites]


I mean, we currently are in the era of the Lime-a-rita, so.
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:06 PM on April 23, 2018 [22 favorites]


That advertising tag is more important than I thought. Peachtree Schnapps was introduced in 1984, but 1981 saw the introduction of Bartles & Jaymes fruit-flavored wine coolers from E.J. Gallo. I wonder if National Distillers ever thanked Gallo for their support.
posted by infinitewindow at 12:12 PM on April 23, 2018 [7 favorites]


I bet there were some sociological aspects of such drinks as well that maybe hadn't existed in earlier days - more single women going out, harder laws around drinking created the drinking culture of college and later high school - ratcheting tougher laws on drunk driving (it's still bizarre to me that it was legal in 2000 to have open containers in the car), plus some real artistic creativity with schnapps-type flavorings. I mean, if your choices before were basics (beer, whiskey, voda, rum) served with ice, that these would be like a breath of fresh air.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:12 PM on April 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


I still like fuzzy navels in the whole mimosa / bellini "it's healthy because there's fruit in it" spectrum of drinks.
posted by Kyol at 12:14 PM on April 23, 2018 [3 favorites]


I had the pleasure of visiting a Jamaican restaurant deep in Brooklyn last year where the very-sweet, lots of ingredients, bawdy-named cocktail fad has not waned much since its heyday . . . "good sex", "bend me over and fuck me", and "fuck me running" were all options on the drink menu which was also organized in alphabetical order by drink name, without regard for what booze (or anything else) the drinks themselves contained.

Since youre probably curious - the BMOAFM contained: vodka, amaretto, Southern Comfort, and pinapple juice topped with an apricot brandy float.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 12:19 PM on April 23, 2018 [3 favorites]


“The baby-boomers have a sweet tooth and want instant gratification.”

Apparently, you can go through any old periodical and replace "baby boomers" with "millennials" and not substantially change the tone.
posted by Dr. Twist at 12:29 PM on April 23, 2018 [15 favorites]


80s cocktails are a vision of hell. Like, a really The Bad Place version of hell.
posted by Artw at 12:30 PM on April 23, 2018 [8 favorites]


.....I actually like the sweeter cocktails. Sue me.

Although a cranberry juice and vodka is my go-to because I can't ever remember the silly names of anything else
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:32 PM on April 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


Of course, when you're drenched in Drakkar Noir

I'm technically too young for this, but this just gives everyone a better idea of how uncool Drakkar Noir was by the time I owned some - but I'm now having the most uncomfortable and disturbing flashback to about 1987.

I'm wearing too much acid wash denim. I may even have a denim tuxedo going on. My head itches horribly from the Aquanet and in the sun it smells like a plastics factory caught fire. This was also from the era in which I did not know and no one told me that your hair naturally parts one way or the other, and one of the reasons I needed so much Aquanet and gel is because I spent most of puberty trying to part/style my hair the wrong way for some unknown reason. As if a sprayed, stiff wave of spikes could be called parting one's hair.

And - wait for it - I'm waiting in a Mormon church parking lot to board a bus to a summer Mormon youth camp. And I looked (and smelled) relatively normal.

About the only decent and comfortable thing in this entire flashback is that I'm probably listening to Oingo Boingo or The Specials on my boombox.


Anyway, back on topic:

My local craft cocktail makes a grape shrub that's utterly delicious. It's the grape-ist. Over soda and ice it's like you took all the best parts of a grape soda, grape jolly rancher and really good fresh grape juice and crammed them all into something even more grape. It smells purple it's so grape. As a fan of grape sodas, I unapologetically love it because it's the most grape I've tasted in anything, ever.
posted by loquacious at 12:33 PM on April 23, 2018 [20 favorites]


New Girl, of all things, got there first.

"Sure, I could get a girl drunk and topless with only some crushed ice, a hollowed out papaya, and two fingers of rum. But then I grew up, and now I only want to make a drink that a coal miner would want. Straightforward, honest. Something that says, 'I work in a hole.'" -- Nick
posted by gauche at 12:36 PM on April 23, 2018 [17 favorites]


“The baby-boomers have a sweet tooth and want instant gratification.”

Apparently, you can go through any old periodical and replace "baby boomers" with "millennials" and not substantially change the tone.


I doubt it. The companion piece that'll be written about Millennials will go on about our brunching habit, and the over-the-top complication of hipsters. Drinks requiring local sourcing and 17 ingredients, the bitter hops wars of beer, and the like.

Even in the mainstream, the "why does it take so long to get a coffee at Starbucks" has felt like a Boomers versus Millennials thing, with Boomers wanting fast, easy, and mass-produced, and Millennials wanting to wait a little longer for something more complicated and "genuine."

Of course, these are vague zeitgeist frameworks and no generalization will ever fit perfectly.
posted by explosion at 12:40 PM on April 23, 2018 [6 favorites]


I appreciate all the low-key burns on the Boomers in this article.

Yeah, but given that the article is focusing on 1986-1988 timeframe, that would be Gen X's peak drinking years, not Boomers'.
posted by rocket88 at 12:41 PM on April 23, 2018 [12 favorites]


Eighteen comments in and not one has linked to Kids In the Hall's "Girl Drink Drunk"? I'm disappointed.
posted by Quindar Beep at 12:42 PM on April 23, 2018 [39 favorites]


Oh god. So much Fuzzy Navel pregaming in college.

So much peach barf.
posted by 41swans at 12:48 PM on April 23, 2018 [3 favorites]


1986-1988 timeframe, that would be Gen X's peak drinking years

OMG you’re psychic HOW DID YOU KNOW??? ! !
posted by D.C. at 12:50 PM on April 23, 2018 [3 favorites]


that would be Gen X's peak drinking years, not Boomers'

Yeah, the Boomers were drinking Gordon's and Dewar's at the time. The fruity drinks were on us.
posted by octobersurprise at 12:55 PM on April 23, 2018 [3 favorites]


Yeah, but given that the article is focusing on 1986-1988 timeframe, that would be Gen X's peak drinking years, not Boomers'.

According to the hive mind, GenX doesn't start until 1965* and lasts until 1980, so the vast majority of Xers weren't even of legal drinking age from 1986-1988. Those divorce-happy boomers, though, were drinkin' and cokin' it up!

Real Xers drank Zima.

* That's the general consensus, though some demographers go as far back as 1960.
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:57 PM on April 23, 2018 [30 favorites]


given that the article is focusing on 1986-1988 timeframe, that would be Gen X's peak drinking years, not Boomers'.

I think I'd call it a split. The drinking age had just gone up to 21 and cut the young Xers off, but then all the Boomers were getting divorced and going out again. But the old Xers, the single-with-an-okay-job or Yuppies, they did love that stuff.

Us young Xers emerged into Grunge Bar Culture where a lot of the really frooty stuff was too optimistic. You could have bottled beer, you could have one alcohol inside one carrier liquid, or you could have one of the few cocktails that survived the 80s and could be quickly mass-produced: kamikaze/lemon drop, long island iced tea, screwdriver, and one bar special. Probably there were a few wine coolers and Zimas, briefly, in the beer cooler.
posted by Lyn Never at 1:00 PM on April 23, 2018 [14 favorites]


Eh, I can still make it work in light of the new facts:

This crap is all the fault of lazy Boomers shoveling bowls of sugary-ass cereals into their GenX childrens' faces in the morning in lieu of putting any effort into parenting.

Easy peasy!
posted by tobascodagama at 1:08 PM on April 23, 2018 [7 favorites]


I just watched the Tom Cruise movie Cocktail last week for the first time ever. While it was a fun, then ultimately depressing movie, they didn't really talk much about the cocktails except when Tom was trying out for the bar after not getting any jobs on Wall Street. I heard some cocktail names I'd never heard of before.
posted by gucci mane at 1:21 PM on April 23, 2018 [3 favorites]


We guzzled that peachy shit in highschool. I tasted it in my mouth as soon as I read the words Fuzzy Navel. It tasted like day old clothes and unrequited teenage lust. Like last night's underwear the morning after a teenage make-out party. Like the back seat of a shitty sedan pulled over off of Highway 157 halfway to Caseyville. Oh god. The horror, the horror.

I'd do it all again, but hopefully this time I'd drink better hooch.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 1:25 PM on April 23, 2018 [7 favorites]


so the vast majority of Xers weren't even of legal drinking age from 1986-1988.

"Legal" is a key word here, too. I wasn't of legal drinking age in 1985, but it didn't stop that summer from passing in an alcoholic blur. That probably partly accounts for some of the popularity of many of these drinks: the ingredients were cheap and they were easy to make in a dorm room.

The other period fave was the rum and coke. Best consumed with the rum poured into a can right out of the vending machine.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:29 PM on April 23, 2018 [6 favorites]


My parents kept a bucket of peach schnapps slush in their freezer for parties and guests throughout the '80s. It was truly the Schnapps Decade.

This Gen-Xer did most of his heaviest drinking from 1994-2000, but I didn't drink at all in high school and was therefore a late bloomer. Rum or Jack and coke were about the only mixed drinks I can remember any of my fellow students ordering at bars, although I do remember the waitresses at one particular bar walking around with shot glass bandoliers and presumably the ingredients for shooters, so somebody must have been drinking them. In my middle age I enjoy the occasional extremely sweet cocktail (usually over ice, in the summer), but usually they get pretty cloying pretty fast if you have more than two.
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:41 PM on April 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


The favoite 80's cliche cocktail of this Gen Xer was Peach Schnapps & Mountain Dew. I can remember drinking that drink when listening to The Smiths for the first time.
posted by ShakeyJake at 1:44 PM on April 23, 2018 [4 favorites]




It was truly the Schnapps Decade.

I remember walking in the women's dorm to visit a friend one night and finding a big guy passed out at the end of her hall. "What happened to him?" I asked. "Oh so-and-so broke up with him so he sat in the hall and drank schnapps until he passed out. Security's on their way."
posted by octobersurprise at 1:55 PM on April 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


Then we broke out the Midori and watched Moonlighting.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:59 PM on April 23, 2018 [11 favorites]


I went to a medium sized State college in the Midwest 1985 and had two dormmates. One had a boyfriend she met in high school but he went to school somewhere else a few hours away. When she talked, or more like argued, with him on the phone she would stand in front of the full length mirror on the back of the door and she would stare at herself, pretty much every afternoon. As Valentine's Day drew near she agonized over what he would get her. Maybe a ring. She bought him a bottle of his favorite cologne, Drakkar Noir. Very expensive, and classy. He couldn't make it to see her that weekend afterall--killer semester-- but said her gift was on its way. So, not a ring but surely a piece of jewelry? When it finally arrived she tore open the package to find a bottle of Giorgio with about one inch missing, no box. Apparently, she found out later after much yelling and crying in front of the mirror, he stole the sample bottle from the counter. Not much later he gave her crabs.
posted by waving at 2:07 PM on April 23, 2018 [14 favorites]


Yeah, the Boomers were drinking Gordon's and Dewar's at the time.

Ha ha, you're not going to memory-hole all those Sambuca ads with their goddamn three coffee beans in this post.
posted by rhizome at 2:09 PM on April 23, 2018 [7 favorites]


Perhaps I've missed it, but I'm surprised that I haven't seen these cocktails revised using the likes of schnapps made with peaches from an artisanal small farm (their Instagram often features a photogenic dog playing in the orchard) and served for $20 each to aging gen-Xers.
posted by exogenous at 2:11 PM on April 23, 2018 [3 favorites]


Cocktail is on Netflix right now and I, too, watched it for the first time last week. Not much to say but I did notice the “Ding-a-ling” cocktail name this article says is made up; during his poem performance someone yells, “A WHAT?!” When he mentions that one. He’s also always trying to push fruity and complicated drinks on women who are like “no, I just want a beer.”
posted by jeweled accumulation at 2:13 PM on April 23, 2018 [4 favorites]


I just watched the Tom Cruise movie Cocktail last week for the first time ever. While it was a fun, then ultimately depressing movie, they didn't really talk much about the cocktails except when Tom was trying out for the bar after not getting any jobs on Wall Street. I heard some cocktail names I'd never heard of before.

Do NOT get me started on how much potential that movie had. Instead of showing more cool bartending tricks, they decided it should be something else halfway through, like the Young and the Restless or something. My girlfriend is pregnant. And my best friend committed suicide. Oh wait, my girlfriend is rich, woo-hoo! Grrrr. (Sorry for ranting, that movie irritates me so much!!)

but 1981 saw the introduction of Bartles & Jaymes fruit-flavored wine coolers from E.J. Gallo.

Yup. Those wine coolers were THE thing in the early 90s. And a lifesaver for those of us who, like Sheldon Cooper, thought of wine: "Mmmm. Grape juice that burns."
posted by Melismata at 2:15 PM on April 23, 2018 [4 favorites]


I am shocked that the Dekuypr's Peach Schnapps was introduced so relatively recently. I was born in 1976 and have very distinct memories of "helping to bartender" at family weddings/gatherings when I was 10-13. This mainly consisted of making 7 & Sevens and Fuzzy Navels.
posted by mmascolino at 2:19 PM on April 23, 2018


Reading articles like this is weird because it recontextualizes my youth in a really weird way.

I graduated high school in '89 and as a Canadian began drinking shortly thereafter at the end of '90. And yeah, these dumb shots were everywhere but at the time it seemed really normal. When you just enter drinking culture you just kind of go along with it - my parents weren't big drinkers so I didn't have any idea of what classic cocktails were or if there really was any difference between Lagavulin and Peach Schnapps.

Anyway, the world of fuzzy navels and long island iced tea and sex on the beach didn't seem cheap in either the esthetic sense or the quality-of-ingredients sense, it just seemed... normal. I just got there, what did I know? I drank Canadian and frickin' Black Label seemed exotic (note to the unfamiliar: it is the least exotic beer possible).

per the article, yeah, I'm sure these drinks went down easy and definitely rose with the rise of binge drinking culture which definitely took hold around the same time. But we had nothing to compare it to. At least I didn't. Weird that these bar staples that seem to have sprung forth fully-formed from the forehead of Zeus were, in fact, recently created by hungry salesmen working for third-tier cheap distilleries.
posted by GuyZero at 2:20 PM on April 23, 2018 [6 favorites]


I'm surprised that I haven't seen these cocktails revised

Oh, pretty much everywhere I go anymore, as a middle-aged Xer who sometimes frequents hip establishments but will also order a drink in a big box chain, has an insufferable drink menu. I mean, I don't hate it entirely, I've had some decent drinks with ginger syrup or elderflower cordial but I've also had a lychee martini that tasted like bile and have to triple-check every description for rosemary. I just think every bar is racing to be the uniquest district of Flavortown now instead of everyone capitalizing on the Fuck Me In The Ear craze or whatever like back then. We had a different kind of aspirational drinking then, when we wanted to imagine we were sitting in our small town/suburban/cheap city bar drinking whatever the Cool Kids were drinking, now we want to drink a drink nobody else has ever had before...just like everyone else.
posted by Lyn Never at 2:28 PM on April 23, 2018 [7 favorites]


> The drinking age had just gone up to 21 and cut the young Xers off

Anyone who could drink legally before Reagan threatened to defund highways in any state with a sub-21 drinking age got grandfathered in. So if they were 18 in 1984, they didn't get a brief moment of legal drunken glory before having to wait three more years. If you accept the premise that Generation X starts in 1965* there were millions of Gen Xers legally learning their way around booze starting in 1983.

*(Coupland's book that coined the term "Generation X" was about a lost generation of people born at the end of the fifties through the early 60s, too young to be hippies or to join the first wave of punk, but popular culture has since lumped that age group into the boomer generation out of convenience and appropriated the term for some different people.)
posted by ardgedee at 2:28 PM on April 23, 2018 [6 favorites]


recently created by hungry salesmen working for third-tier cheap distilleries.

Well, the Moscow Mule was basically a marketing ploy concocted by people trying to sell excess vodka, ginger beer, and copper mugs.
posted by dnash at 2:30 PM on April 23, 2018 [4 favorites]


In the late aughts, we were, ahem, cool enough to get brutally hungover with limoncello. If have a child's taste and you're being authentic, it's ok.
posted by grandiloquiet at 2:39 PM on April 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


Gen-X'er - my crowd liked simplicity or sophistication. PBR or Magic Hat #9, Captain and Coke or an obscure 9 year single malt. White Russians and other cream cocktails were a thing for a while after the Big Lebowski came out, to the point where you could buy single serve mudslides and butter shots, but that died out after a couple years.
posted by Slap*Happy at 2:44 PM on April 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


(TBH, despite my sneering, I actually don't care if people like sugary cocktails. The obnoxious names, on the other hand...)
posted by tobascodagama at 2:46 PM on April 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


I bartended through the 70's and 80's. Yes the stickies, aka garbage drinks, were all the rage. I wouldn't drink one on a dare but they did have a few things going for them. They were quick and easy to throw together. Great for a high volume speed bar. They used mostly cheap ingredients while commanding a premium price and thus yielded a nice margin. There were few if any self-anointed experts of the genre to argue with you about their perfect formulation or presentation. So, assuming you don't have to drink one, what's not to like?
posted by jim in austin at 2:47 PM on April 23, 2018 [7 favorites]


I keep putting frozen pink lemonade concentrate in my spiced rum. That's probably bad.
posted by seanmpuckett at 2:55 PM on April 23, 2018 [4 favorites]


In a shot glass, pour 3/4 full of butterscotch (or peach, your choice) schnapps. Slowly drizzle Bailey’s on top so that it forms a somewhat congealed mass. Add a few drops of grenadine for tint. Enjoy a Monkey Brain.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:04 PM on April 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


I like my cocktails to taste like goddamn candy and the rest of you can bite me if you've got a problem with it.
posted by kyrademon at 3:07 PM on April 23, 2018 [10 favorites]


Nobody's mentioned blue drinks yet?
posted by pernoctalian at 3:10 PM on April 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


At least one or two of the following elements comprise your typical 1980s cocktail:
  • A name with plenty of sexual innuendo
  • A neon colour - preferably electric blue (blue curaçao) or lurid green (melon liqueur)
  • Orange juice (usually then packaged rather than freshly squeezed)
  • Sour mix (often in powdered form and mixed with water)
  • Vodka (Absolut Perfection - the first of Absolut's famous ad campaigns launched in 1980)
  • Cream of coconut
  • Southern Comfort
  • Baileys Original Irish Cream liqueur (launched November 1974)
  • Peach schnapps liqueur
  • Glassware that was either huge or tiny - yes shots were in vogue and preferably layered

posted by Artw at 3:16 PM on April 23, 2018 [4 favorites]


Anyone who could drink legally before Reagan threatened to defund highways in any state with a sub-21 drinking age got grandfathered in.

Not in Georgia
posted by thelonius at 3:22 PM on April 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


That person who ordered the Slippery Nipple
Was once a thirteen-year-old blasted on Ripple
posted by Sys Rq at 3:49 PM on April 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


Just what on earth did William S. Burroughs have against Thriller?

The remark was in context of peach schnapps having a big moment so I guess that was the day's big radio album he was too cool to like? I was curious - what the hell kind of music did William S. Burroughs listen to, anyway? - and I found this

The only area that he really was unsure about, I think, is the rock and roll thing. There was one time when he first got to New York, he was quite broke, actually, and he was trying to make money writing for Crawdaddy and one of the things he did was they commissioned him to interview Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin, so he want to a Led Zep concert and, I mean, absolutely hated it and had nothing, really, to say to Jimmy Page. But they found a mutual interest in magic. It’s a very interesting interview, actually. And again, David Bowie interviewed him for Rolling Stone, which is a very interesting thing. But again, Bill couldn’t talk about Bowie or music because it wasn’t his scene at all. But all these people kept coming. Bill’s personal taste in music stopped when he stopped being a youth, really — he liked Viennese waltzes and the hot fives and hot sevens of Louis Armstrong and early Lester Young and stuff like that. Prewar, all of it. And Moroccan music.
posted by atoxyl at 3:49 PM on April 23, 2018 [11 favorites]


> Not in Georgia

Georgia's minimum drinking age was 19, and after the Drinking Age Act of 1984 was passed, the state raised its drinking age by one year every year until it reached 21. So technically the state did not grandfather in people who could drink under the age of 21, but practically speaking, it did.

However, some other states did not grandfather in drinkers under the age of 21, so I was wrong: Some people did in fact only have a brief moment of legal drinking at the age of 18 before having to wait three years. There's a Wikipedia page charting the history of minimum drinking ages in the United States.
posted by ardgedee at 3:57 PM on April 23, 2018


No, I had friends who would turn 19, be able to drink for a few months, then , the age would go up, and rhey couldn't drink until their next birthday - for three years.
posted by thelonius at 4:02 PM on April 23, 2018 [9 favorites]


The local chinese restaurant where I'd go for quick takeout for years has a bar right at the cash register. Rather longer ago than I'll admit I noticed a bottle of butterscotch schnapps. Ok sure, I remember thinking, something for everyone. It was half full and I'd noticed the level. It never changed. Years, never changed. Just recently was in for a long hiatus, what, the level. Mentioned to the son of the original owner, he knew what I was talking about and remembered the patron and we had a good laugh.
posted by sammyo at 4:03 PM on April 23, 2018 [5 favorites]


I give you, a Blowjob. NSFW duh.
posted by Splunge at 4:08 PM on April 23, 2018 [3 favorites]


Annoyingly our nice local Sundance cinema, who used to do very nice, real cocktails, got taken over by AMC and is now an “AMC dine-in” featuring a bunch of dayglo nightmare fruit cocktails.
posted by Artw at 4:13 PM on April 23, 2018 [3 favorites]


I like my cocktails to taste like goddamn candy and the rest of you can bite me if you've got a problem with it.

Is... that because... your flesh is infused with sweet fruit flavors?

Asking for some friends my ghoul pack.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:16 PM on April 23, 2018 [5 favorites]


oh no people drinking drinks whose taste they like the taste of because the drinks taste sweet and the people drinking the drinks like things that taste sweet

someone please wake me from this cruel nightmare
posted by duffell at 4:21 PM on April 23, 2018 [6 favorites]


I'm surprised that I haven't seen these cocktails revised using the likes of schnapps made with peaches from an artisanal small farm (their Instagram often features a photogenic dog playing in the orchard) and served for $20 each to aging gen-Xers

I wouldn’t pay 20 bucks for one, but I’d probably pay ten.
posted by octobersurprise at 4:27 PM on April 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


Just what on earth did William S. Burroughs have against Thriller?

I'm disappointed he didn't say they were sweet enough to give a mugwump diabetes.
posted by sjswitzer at 4:30 PM on April 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


I wouldn’t pay 20 bucks for one, but I’d probably pay ten.

You're going to pay $10 for well liquor and something from the soda gun these days. Dude.
posted by GuyZero at 4:36 PM on April 23, 2018 [3 favorites]


> "Is... that because... your flesh is infused with sweet fruit flavors?"

Yes. I am delicious.
posted by kyrademon at 4:37 PM on April 23, 2018 [4 favorites]


Anyone who could drink legally before Reagan threatened to defund highways in any state with a sub-21 drinking age got grandfathered in. So if they were 18 in 1984, they didn't get a brief moment of legal drunken glory before having to wait three more years. If you accept the premise that Generation X starts in 1965* there were millions of Gen Xers legally learning their way around booze starting in 1983.

The cut-off date in New Jersey was three days before my birth date. So if I had been born a week earlier, I could have drunk legally at 18 but instead had to wait until I was 21. I moved to Pennsylvania two months later anyway and it's been 21 here since 1933 so it didn't really affect my life but it pissed me off anyway.
posted by octothorpe at 4:44 PM on April 23, 2018 [3 favorites]


You're going to pay $10 for well liquor and something from the soda gun these days. Dude.

Not where I live. Well drinks are 6 bucks or so; top shelf is 8 or so? But maybe I’d pay 15 if the dog was really cute.
posted by octobersurprise at 5:17 PM on April 23, 2018


wouldn’t pay 20 bucks for one, but I’d probably pay ten.

Sorry. 20 bucks. Same as in town.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 5:18 PM on April 23, 2018 [7 favorites]


Back in the nineties I was in a bar in the Castro here in San Francisco. A guy in the group I was in ordered Cocksuckers - Baileys and butterscotch schnapps. Actually quite tasty.
posted by njohnson23 at 5:43 PM on April 23, 2018


This is the Fireball Era, and I saw a couple places with "Cinnamon Toast Crunch Shots" so yeah.

Although I had a Mule in a place that made it in batches with like 80 pounds of ginger, and would burn esophagus again.

(Link to Kodos and Kang saying "if you have a better way to metabolize ethanol I'd like to hear it")
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 5:51 PM on April 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


Anyone who could drink legally before Reagan threatened to defund highways in any state with a sub-21 drinking age got grandfathered in. So if they were 18 in 1984, they didn't get a brief moment of legal drunken glory before having to wait three more years

My father, who is a Boomer, or possibly the generation before (born 1938), recalls that for awhile in Ohio the drinking age was lower for women than men? Because of their supposedly greater maturity? Also, 3.2 beer, named for its ABV, which you could drink legally before you were old enough to legally drink hard alcohol.
posted by mrmurbles at 6:09 PM on April 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


I love fruity cocktails and don't understand the disdain. I assume it's because they're associated with women?
posted by Brain Sturgeon at 6:56 PM on April 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


3.2 beer was still a thing in Oklahoma until a couple of years ago, though you had to be 21 to buy it. Only liquor stores could sell the stronger stuff. I think that's changed now.

There are also some bars that only sell 3.2 beer and no other alcoholic beverage. Based on my anecdotal observations in Tulsa a few years ago, they mostly cater to old men who drink large amounts of 3.2 beer in short periods of time. Some younger people were surprised I even set foot in those bars, as if I had said "oh yeah, I went to bingo night at the senior center just to see what it was all about."

This one has apparently reinvented itself as a young people's hangout "with the notable addition of liquor": http://roottulsa.com/places/5464
posted by smelendez at 6:59 PM on April 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


The night of prom, my older friend took my friends to a drive through liquor store. In addition to the booze he got us a bottle of "Whoopee on the Beach" mix.
posted by gatorae at 7:02 PM on April 23, 2018


Just reading this thread is giving me a hangover
posted by JDHarper at 7:12 PM on April 23, 2018 [7 favorites]


Freshman year, my own invention: peppermint schnapps in cherry coke.
posted by wenestvedt at 7:18 PM on April 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


I loved Fuzzy Navels. Eventually, though, I matured; although I still enjoy Fuzzy Navels, bars don't carry schnapps anymore dammit I have switched to a drink with more traditional ingredients: Rum & Root Beer.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 7:30 PM on April 23, 2018


I wonder if National Distillers ever thanked Gallo for their support.

Aaayy.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:40 PM on April 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


Our family Thanksgivings involved a lot of fuzzy navels and Manischewitz. So peach schnapps sorta reminds me of home. And it costs less than a plane ticket.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 8:23 PM on April 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


Folks, no one is saying you can't enjoy sweet drinks. The disdain is against the lurid names and colors, the cheap liquor and the lack of art or craft.

There are some damn fine fruity drinks out there. But they're not made with orange juice from concentrate.
posted by explosion at 8:41 PM on April 23, 2018 [4 favorites]


Meanwhile I was busy with the $1.99 bottles of Bulgarian wine that were beginning to trickle in. Trakia?
posted by Mr. Yuck at 8:42 PM on April 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


My father, who is a Boomer, or possibly the generation before (born 1938), recalls that for awhile in Ohio the drinking age was lower for women than men?

The U.S. Supreme Court case announcing the intermediate scrutiny standard for gender discrimination, Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190 (1976) (oyez, wiki), involves this fact pattern, but in Oklahoma. (Spoilers: unconstitutional.) Case also even involves "nonintoxicating" 3.2 beer.
posted by cdefgfeadgagfe at 8:52 PM on April 23, 2018 [4 favorites]


Sloe Gin Fizz. My favorite awful college drink at The Pelham in Newport, RI in 1986.
posted by sundrop at 8:59 PM on April 23, 2018


Us young Xers emerged into Grunge Bar Culture where a lot of the really frooty stuff was too optimistic. You could have bottled beer, you could have one alcohol inside one carrier liquid, or you could have one of the few cocktails that survived the 80s and could be quickly mass-produced: kamikaze/lemon drop, long island iced tea, screwdriver, and one bar special. Probably there were a few wine coolers and Zimas, briefly, in the beer cooler.

Yes. This. Get out of my head, because you have me (born 12/74) and my generation DOWN.

While a bit pretentious at times and in certain locales, I'm absolutely loving the cocktail renaissance we're currently in the midst of.
posted by CommonSense at 9:27 PM on April 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


There are some damn fine fruity drinks out there. But they're not made with orange juice from concentrate.

Tiki drinks absolutely the way to go for this sort of thing.
posted by Artw at 9:34 PM on April 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


In Spring 79 my mother and I visited a family friend in NY whose bf took us to Windows on the world. I wasn't quite 11 and Frieda suggested i order a sloe gin fizz ( i guess she thought it was like a Shirley temple). No dice.

In my 1st writing class we had the exercise" if x were a y, what would they be?" They chose a professor with a huge beard and someone said fuzzy navel for the drink he'd be. When the school shut down he took a group of students to Ireland, cut off the beard and left it in a pub.
posted by brujita at 9:36 PM on April 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


Oh god some of those drinks from the 80s bring back very vivid memories (and some pretty hazy ones).

My drinks of preference, through the ages:

1984: 17 years old. Usually it was a glass of orange juice with some vodka poured in. I actually hated the taste sensation of alcohol, and tried to smother it with as much juice as possible. Only drank when my Dad and Stepmom had guests over and they got out the hooches, which was at least once a month.

1986: In college. Keg beer in plastic cups. Bong beer. Beer Pong beer. The 100 Club. I have no idea which beer, because I never saw the label and it really didn’t matter.

1988: First year of grad school. Beck’s Dark in a bottle, one or two bottles a night, a few nights a week. The occasional rum and coke.

1990: Third year of grad school. At the bar with friends, maybe 6-8 glasses of pitcher beer per night plus one or two bottles of the following beers: Gorky’s Red. Red Stripe, Killian’s Red. Rolling Rock, Sierra Nevada Pake Ale, Little Kings, Grolsch, Guinness, Harp, or Sam Adams. The same on the weekends, plus, when the bar closed at 2am, back to my pad with a few friends where I had a fully stocked bar and about 50 bottles of top notch liquor, plus white zin, wine coolers, dozens of exotic liqueurs, and champagnes. I bought two or three new bottles every week and we’d experiment with making new drinks. It was my hobby (and an expensive one, too.)

These after-hours sessions would involve Glenfiddich or Laphroig or Wild Turkey or Bombay Sapphire Gin & Tonics if it was a sipping, deep conversation mood, or if it was more upbeat, we’d bust out the champagne, make a pitcher of whiskey sours, amaretto sours, Midori margaritas (despite my detesting the taste of tequila), tropical punch (made from equal parts pine-orange-banana juice and Malibu rum — oh, you could drink it like milk), or pretty much anything else new we could come up with by flipping through my Mr. Boston guide. (“So, what the hell do you do with Galliano, anyway?” “To the Mr. Boston!”). Friends had free run of the bar, with my sincere appreciation if they brought mixers or snacks, and I had a nice stereo system and occasionally free weed, and more rarely shrooms or nitrous, so it was a popular place to hang.

1991: Last year of grad school. I drank almost no alcohol of any kind, pretty much ever. No weed. The bar was still there, and folks still came over and had fun, but exploring LSD basically cured me of my own heavy drinking habit. I kept the bar well stocked for others, and often had weed on hand, too, which they were welcome to have. But I’d picked up 200 hits of acid at a Dead concert at Shoreline in Frisco in early ‘91 (or was it at their Silver Bowl concert in Henderson?) and had completely lost interest in any other drug experience. Some friends got free hits of acid, if I felt like it was the right crowd and mood, there was enough time, and I knew I could be there for them. I once ran a month-long experiment where I spend a whole month lit. (In fact, you do build up a tolerance: the last week of that month, I took five hits a day.). But yeah, it completely cured me of my heavy drinking.

1994: Went through literally years without any interest in alcohol. I may have had a beer or glass of wine with friends one or twice a year.

2003: Living in Southern France: Sharing awesome wines of various types with visiting friends. Vin de Noix. Kir Royale. (Couldn’t stand the taste of pastisse.)

2010: Back in the US. Maybe one glass of wine a week, with a meal. Sometimes *gasp* diluted with a little water (in the Ancient Roman fashion, so it’s not gauche, it’s classic.)

2018: A small glass of Taylor Fladgate 30-year Port as a rare treat. A hot chocolate with a splash of Bailey’s Caramel a few times a year in the winter. A mimosa at a brunch perhaps once a year. A nice glass of wine with dinner maybe once a month. I can’t imagine getting drunk anymore, and haven’t smoked weed or dropped acid in decades. I do sometimes miss the completely uninhibited social interaction you get with folks when a table-full of your pals are well into your cups. I wish there was a way to experience that sense of liberated interconnectedness with the universe and other people without everyone having to get smashed or high, though...
posted by darkstar at 11:04 PM on April 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


There are some damn fine fruity drinks out there. But they're not made with orange juice from concentrate.

Tiki drinks absolutely the way to go for this sort of thing.


The surrounding decor is usually better as well.
posted by gtrwolf at 11:23 PM on April 23, 2018 [3 favorites]


Hmmm, no mention of the repellent cement mixer?
posted by Chrysostom at 11:28 PM on April 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


I don't know, peach schnapps can still have it's place. I blow through the $5 peach habanero margaritas at my bar in hipsterist of hipster deep bushwick.

I'm sure the tequila/marg snobs will look down their noses at a margarita that has anything other than fresh lime juice, but the kids love them and they are a very refreshing not overly sweet version of a margarita.

Frozen drinks are also having a comeback the past few years.. my recipe for frozen painkillers was dubbed New Yorker Mags best cocktail in I think 2016. Think about that; not even close to a what is usually considered a cocktail and a sweet though deadly frozen drink, more a modern version of those thick alcoholic TGI Fridays ice cream drinks of the 80's (Strawberry Shortcake, Chunky Monkey, etc.) than complicated crafted cocktail Sales of PKs dwarf all the other drinks in house with the exception of the $2 can beer.

What goes around comes around is what I'm saying.
posted by newpotato at 4:08 AM on April 24, 2018 [3 favorites]


Freshman year, my own invention: peppermint schnapps in cherry coke.

Sounds like my favorite freshman drink: strawberry schnapps in Diet Dr. Pepper.

(We had a *very* limited selection. I think the only other palatable options we could make were tequila sunrise and Kahlua & milk.)
posted by cheshyre at 5:20 AM on April 24, 2018


My two masterpiece inventions were “Skittlebrau” (a nod to the Simpsons, natch) made with port and root beer, which was quite tasty, and a “K&K”, an after-bender concoction made with Kahlua and Kaopectate, which was not.
posted by darkstar at 6:53 AM on April 24, 2018


I can still make a great sloe gin fizz if any of you guys wanna drop by my house.
posted by JanetLand at 7:04 AM on April 24, 2018 [1 favorite]


I remember being shocked at some point in the 00s when I had a screwdriver with real, not-bottled, fresh-squeezed orange juice. It was... like a mimosa, unsurprisingly, but without that nasty scuzzy cheap-champagne flavor. I'd definitely drink them regularly if squeezing oranges for juice wasn't such a hassle.

So that's one drink from that sugary miasma of a decade that turns out to have a good heart.
posted by nebulawindphone at 7:09 AM on April 24, 2018 [1 favorite]


I stand by the assertion that the fuzzy navel was invented in Omaha, because New York tries to claim every Omaha invention (including the Reuben, god damn them.)

For my friend Teri's birthday a few years ago we surprised her by taking her to the Waggin Tongue kennel and making fuzzy navels, and that's not a drinking experience you can have in New York.
posted by maxsparber at 7:47 AM on April 24, 2018 [1 favorite]


Fresh juice is always the way to go.

Also, if you’ve got lemons around, and simple syrup*, a cocktail shaker and some ice you can make really good cold fresh lemonade really quickly. This is how all the lemons I peel for garnishes end up and it impresses the hell out of the kids.


* which is just sugar and water and remembering to mix them at some earlier date.
posted by Artw at 8:09 AM on April 24, 2018 [2 favorites]


Hmmm, no mention of the repellent cement mixer?

i pretend they don't exist and i refuse to consider any alternative to this worldview
posted by poffin boffin at 8:33 AM on April 24, 2018 [1 favorite]


I love fruity cocktails and don't understand the disdain. I assume it's because they're associated with women?

Probably, although you don't sell a few million bottles of peach schnapps to women alone.

The general trend in food snobbery is taste "complexity" or "sophistication". There are indeed a lot of complex taste notes in, say, scotch or red wine. Peach schnapps doesn't have a complex flavour profile (nor does orange juice). But there's nothing really inherent to that. There's nothing wrong with liking simple things. And there's nothing inherently better about something being hard to make or hard to understand.

Also people don't drink a fuzzy navel for the experience of the drink itself (at least to my experience). People will drink a glass or two of red wine as a flavour experience. Someone might have a single glass of port as an aperitif or dessert. People drink fuzzy navels to get drunk.
posted by GuyZero at 9:51 AM on April 24, 2018


so the vast majority of Xers weren't even of legal drinking age from 1986-1988.

Yeah, those were my high school years, and I know people would talk about weekends fueled by fuzzy navels, but I didn't drink at the time (and I don't like peach "flavored" things, only actual peaches). I had the great (not great) experience of getting to my very first party like that about an hour after people had already started drinking, and I basically thought, "wow, this is stupid" and didn't drink that night. I saw one kid (a few months younger than me) get physically thrown out the front door by his belt and collar after he started dry heaving in the entryway. When I left the party a little while later he was puking in the front yard.

The other popular things for underage drinking at the time were Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers and eventually Zima (but that didn't come out until 1993 so it's outside the scope of that article). Parties usually had a bottle of peach schnapps, wine coolers that were usually carried by the girl who brought them and shared directly with her friends (how to know you're not going to get in too much trouble: buy a four pack of wine coolers, give two to your friends, and don't drink anything else). And, of course, the guys mostly drank whatever beer was cheapest. I think it's true that in the 80s Gen-X drank a lot of sweet stuff that didn't taste much like alcohol, but most of Gen-X was underage at the time. The adults concocting that stuff and buying most of it legally were not Gen-X.

The marketing success of peach schnapps had to have been on the boomers, unless the whole thing was down to underage drinking. That seems unlikely.
posted by fedward at 10:15 AM on April 24, 2018 [1 favorite]


Perhaps I've missed it, but I'm surprised that I haven't seen these cocktails revised using the likes of schnapps made with peaches from an artisanal small farm (their Instagram often features a photogenic dog playing in the orchard) and served for $20 each to aging gen-Xers.

Meet Jeffrey Morgenthaler. OK, so the Grasshopper is older than the 80s but the Amaretto Sour peaked in the 80s and 90s and the Long Island Iced Tea epitomizes the era.

Morgenthaler also gets a mention in an NYT article called When Bad Drinks Go Good. There's a riff on the mentioned Midori Sour as well as a few other revived drinks over at Punch.
posted by fedward at 10:28 AM on April 24, 2018 [1 favorite]


The marketing success of peach schnapps had to have been on the boomers, unless the whole thing was down to underage drinking. That seems unlikely.

My direct experience (albeit from a place with a legal drinking age of 19) was that nobody over the age of 25 was drinking these ridiculous cocktails.
posted by rocket88 at 12:24 PM on April 24, 2018


Probably there were a few wine coolers and Zimas, briefly, in the beer cooler.

Have probably told this story before, but I think of it every time Zimas are invoked: in '91, I saw a puff piece in one of New York's free weeklies, where the writers were playing around with a Brita filter and tried running other beverages through it to see what would happen and taste-testing the results. One of the things they tried was Guinness - which they said filtered down into a substance that tasted disturbingly like Zima.

They went on to say that someone then speculated about what would happen if they ran actual Zima through a Brita filter, but then decided not to bother because it would probably just disappear altogether.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:46 PM on April 24, 2018 [6 favorites]


"...what the hell kind of music did William S. Burroughs listen to, anyway?"

Laurie Anderson

I knew a guy who did the NYU graduate film program and when I asked him about it, he mentioned that during that time he was a PA for Home of the Brave. I was all OMG! what was Laurie Anderson like?? Did you meet Burroughs?? He said he mostly only remembers being asked to get them coffee or sandwiches.

I totally must have a mixed-up memory, because I have been sure that I first heard of the "blow job" in 1985 when I was waiting tables. This piece claims it's a 90s invention.

I was in Texas and in lockstep every year with it when they increased the drinking age from 19 to 21. I felt special.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 12:58 PM on April 24, 2018 [1 favorite]


My drink of choice 86-89 was stoli, kahluha and diet coke. I asked legal age classmates to get it for me on their liquor runs.
posted by brujita at 12:58 PM on April 24, 2018


Amaretto sours are delicious, fight me.
posted by nebulawindphone at 1:08 PM on April 24, 2018 [4 favorites]


Sours as a class of cocktails fall into the Classic Cocktail category, probably even ones with weirdo gross liqueurs.
posted by Artw at 1:11 PM on April 24, 2018 [1 favorite]


(the whiskey sour is my fave. Though I don’t bother with the egg white bit as that sounds gross)
posted by Artw at 1:12 PM on April 24, 2018 [1 favorite]


Sours are indeed delicious even more so if you make the sour mix yourself. In college I discovered that pretty much any schnapps + sour mix tended to be delicious where delicious == super easy to drink.
posted by mmascolino at 1:23 PM on April 24, 2018


Sours as a class of cocktails fall into the Classic Cocktail category, probably even ones with weirdo gross liqueurs.

So do the fizzes, actually.
posted by tobascodagama at 1:33 PM on April 24, 2018 [1 favorite]


Not much later he gave her crabs.

Aww, so he finally made it out to visit!
posted by FatherDagon at 1:34 PM on April 24, 2018 [2 favorites]


My invention, no doubt mentioned before,

The Russian Jockstrap
Vodka and Gatorade.
posted by Splunge at 3:01 PM on April 24, 2018


I cannot tell a lie. I am a very early Gen X'er, and my tipples of choice in the '80s were nothing but sugar bombs: not just Fuzzy Navels but also Mudslides (vodka, Kahlua, cream and Bailey's Irish Cream), wine coolers, rum and Hawaiian Punch (?!?!), and frozen banana daiquiris.

I can at least hold my head up proudly and say that I never tried to get a buzz on with Robitussin. If you're (understandably) thinking, "Well, that's a pretty low bar," my four years in college in New York state coincided with an increase in the NYS drinking age from 19 to 21, and some folks got desperate.
posted by virago at 5:56 PM on April 24, 2018 [3 favorites]


> Then we broke out the Midori and watched Moonlighting

The only time I ever had Midori was while playing a drinking game called Snatch -- it involved a mousetrap -- and it was in 1988 and one of my drinking companions was Matt Taibbi and I DECLARE MYSELF THE MOST GEN X PERSON IN THIS THREAD.
posted by The corpse in the library at 3:21 PM on April 25, 2018 [10 favorites]


You...you just waitaminnit while I put on my Devo red flowerpot hat, Members’ Only jacket, Jordache jeans, crack open a wine cooler, and pop a cassette of Roxy Music’s “More than This” in the boom box. THEN we’ll talk! Harrumph!
posted by darkstar at 8:53 PM on April 25, 2018 [2 favorites]


Yeah no corpse wins.
posted by desuetude at 10:27 PM on April 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


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