New Year's Eve is fast approaching, and for lots of folks that means... drinking. Plenty of drinking. And since there's no shortage of singers and songwriters who've had a little something to say about that particular topic, maybe some of the following tunes can serve as an appropriate soundtrack to your own joyous (or not?) imbibing of spirits. For example, there's... Jimmy Liggins with his succinct rendition of
Drunk, and there's...
[more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite
on Dec 30, 2011 -
67 comments
Idiotarod. The
Iditarod is the famous long-distance race in which yelping dogs tow a sled across Alaska. Our Idiotarod is pretty much the same thing, except that instead of dogs, it's people, instead of sleds, it's shopping carts, and instead of Alaska it's New York City.
posted by thanatogenous
on Jan 20, 2005 -
12 comments
"Not My Head!" Drinking games based on movies or television shows are
legion, but surely the most epic, erudite, witty, and hangover-inducing is "Not My Head": the
"I, Claudius Drinking Game"! Whether or not you've ever seen the 13 part
BBC series on which it's based, the
rules are quite simple—and since every
episode contains plenty of
banishments,
poisonings, and
orgies, you can be sure you'll be working through those bottles of red wine pretty quickly. Dress as your
favorite character for extra debauched realness - and remember, you can't tell the players without a
scorecard! (Especially when you're drunk.)
posted by contraposto
on Dec 27, 2004 -
22 comments
Speaking Of weight loss and exercise... Those who like their booze also like their nicotine. People who drink to excess also tend to be chronic smokers, and a new report suggests the combination of the two might prove more toxic than either one alone. a small study found chronic smoking + alcohol dependence = increased severity of brain damage. The frontal lobes (short-term storage sites) turn out to be the most damaged. A separate study used rats to show that alcoholism and excessive food intake may share the same chemical pathways in the brain.
Forbes has the HealthDayNews report that focuses mainly on the smokes,
MSNBC looks more at the eats. They also have an interesting
Addictions Sections. Could it be that some folks are just prone to addictions and everyone settles on something different?
posted by Blake
on Dec 17, 2004 -
21 comments
The Dittohead Guide To Adult Beverages can be read in its entirety (abt. 250Kb) on the Web. (For those of you in Rio Linda, a dittohead is a Rush Limbaugh fan.) But Britt Gillette has also self-published his book and wants you to make his dreams come true by buying it on Amazon. It's got hilarious drink names in it, like "
Caller Abortion" (a stunt Limbaugh used on his show -- complete with the sound of a vacuum cleaner), "
Feminazi Frazzle," and "
John F-ing Kerry." The recipes look like they'd make tasty drinks, but I think I'll pass on the purchase. Who really needs a novelty, right-wing drink recipe book?
posted by tbc
on Aug 13, 2004 -
12 comments
It's time to send the team home: "England has bred a contemporary culture of immoderation at every level, with particular reference to drinking and fighting. The recent
Panorama programme on weekend binge-drinking in city centres provided a wake-up call, as should the novelist Andrew O'Hagan's admirable
essay on current British attitudes to masculinity, reprinted in yesterday's G2." (via The Guardian)
posted by n o i s e s
on Jun 17, 2004 -
27 comments
How much alcohol have YOU consumed in your life? Take the
"drink-o-meter" test. (Flash) I rated a "Homer Simpson", which means I could fill a few bathtubs, but haven't quite spent the Ferrari money. Something tells me that many of MeFi's finest will bury my score...
via the Sporting Press.
posted by vito90
on Dec 11, 2003 -
7 comments
Poor, Much-Maligned Alcohol Gets A Good Word: It's quarter to three, there's no one in the place/Except you and me,/So set 'em' up Joe, I got a little story/ I think you should know... And the story is something, if you're a drinker, you probably already know. (
I was so surprised by this article I wondered if it was sponsored by the booze industry. But then I mixed myself another drink; read the wonderfully-named, probably Guinness - and poteen-fuelled - Dublin Principles and drank its health anyway!)
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Nov 3, 2003 -
16 comments
The Spirits Of The Times: Whatever's Next? In an unstable marketplace, good old spirits have been undergoing an extraordinary renaissance since 1988, with 2003 the best year yet. And growing. With summer over and
thoughts turning to the more warming libations, I wonder what the next big drinking craze will be. My bets are on the wonderful, underrated
fruit brandies, distilled directly from fruit juices with nothing else added:
kirsch,
framboise,
mirabelle. Mmmm... The best
eaux-de-vie, in my experience, are those from
G. E. Massenez and above all (though they're quite expensive and alcoholic) from the Swiss
Paul Morand distillery. (
Flash req.) An ice-cold
Williamine, served in a shot glass surrounded by an old-fashioned tumbler full of shaved ice: oh what bliss on an autumn night, after a late dinner with old friends!
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Sep 27, 2003 -
12 comments
You've Come A Long Way, Baby: Unfortunately, you picked the wrong one, dear old
Old-Fashioned, dean of cocktails.
Robert Hess's definitive essay on the ever-changing ways of making one shows just how contentious a
cocktail recipe can be. It also bears sad testimony to how the great classics are being fruited up, iced up, fizzed up, shaken till obliteration and generally girlied, dumbed and boozed down. So how do you stand on the cherry, the pineapple and the orange? And don't even bother commenting if you're a seltzer fan! ;)
posted by MiguelCardoso
on May 21, 2003 -
51 comments
The end of a stereotype? Ireland's Prime Minister wants to limit advertising and slap warning labels on alcoholic beverages in an effort to curtail teenage binge drinking. It doesn't seem to work too well here in the U.S., can it work in Ireland, the punch line of most drinking jokes?
posted by MediaMan
on May 19, 2003 -
21 comments
Bar Signs. Modern Drunkard has posted a handy guide for the alcoholic in us all, a set of gestures to communicate your needs when it's too loud to hear, or just because, as the site says, "when words come out, whiskey can't get in."
posted by jonson
on Dec 16, 2002 -
21 comments
Water for thought. Is 8ouncesx8glasses a day a myth at best or a beverage industry conspiracy at worst?
"I did 43 years of research on that system -- the osmoregulatory system. That system is so precise and so fast that I find it impossible to believe that evolution left us with a chronic water deficit" ..just drink enough to slake thirst -- and this includes coffee, tea, and even
beer!
posted by stbalbach
on Aug 10, 2002 -
31 comments
Man and his family booted off airplane after asking if pilots were sober. Hans von Schweinitz, on his way to go fishing in Canada, asked one of the flight crew whether the pilots had taken a sobriety test. They hadn't. A blood alcohol test kit was sent for. Two and a half hours later, with the plane sitting there on the tarmac, the pilots were found to be clean. Then they ordered von Schweinitz and his family to get off the plane, while the other passengers cheered.
posted by RylandDotNet
on Jul 16, 2002 -
43 comments
Beer makes me smart...Beer, me make art.
After trying to make little "Golden Child" men out of Bud Lite cans Saturday, I checked the web for other beer inspired artforms. The results are range from the folky-
Beer Label art to cozy
beer bottle homes and dangerous
beer can guns. Even cash can be made...for hilarious
rent woes... to Big $$$ as with David Hockney's
Pearl Blossom Highway currently at the Getty Museum. Anyone else inspired by beer?
posted by hellinskira
on Apr 8, 2002 -
4 comments
The Philadelphia Daily News has
recently covered a
series of articles on "Malternatives," those hard liquor laced beverages like hard lemonades and vodka based alterna-beers that have sprung up in the last year. Even though they contain 100% distilled alcohol,
they are taxed as beer, saving Smirnoff over $80 million in taxes last year alone. Among their other advantages for manufacturers, they get to advertise on TV and be placed for sale next to milder forms of alcohol, dodging laws against hard liquor. Is this a boon for the industry or deceptive practices?
posted by mathowie
on Mar 29, 2002 -
27 comments
"Children Drink 25% of Alcohol Consumed in the U.S." At least according to the attention-grabbing headline of a press release recently issued by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. The only problem is that
it wasn't true. The organization had miscalculated the data, and the figure was actually closer to 11%.
It was also misleading, since the word "children" included 18, 19, and 20 year-olds (who presumably do most of the drinking). Aside from yet another lesson in the inherent malleability of statistics, what conclusions should we draw from this study? Should we accept that teenagers are going to drink, and teach moderation? Or is stricter enforcement of the 21 age-limit the way to go? I'm also interested in the views of those living in (more enlightened?) countries with a lower drinking age.
posted by pardonyou?
on Mar 1, 2002 -
22 comments
For Lent, I'm Giving Up Not Drinking Cocktails - What About You? I collect cocktail books but there are two web sites* that are just as good as the best bartender's bible. The first is
Dale DeGroff's. The second, sadly discontinued but still invaluable, is
Paul Harrington's. Both are very personal and reveal a deep knowledge and love of this quintessentially American and civilized art form.
Cocktails may very well be the only truly democratic and universally accessible pastime. They can be made at home quite cheaply by anyone and be just as delicious as the very best served in the very best bar to the richest imbiber in the world. Not to mention their incredible
Valentine's Day potential... so what's it to be, pal? *
Webtender, Drinkboy and Esquire's cocktail guides pale by comparison
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Feb 13, 2002 -
53 comments
