6 Fictional Alcoholic Beverages That Actually Get You Drunk
If TV shows and movies have taught us anything, it's that drinking is awesome. I actually think part of Don Draper's job description is "Drink your weight in bourbon and smoke a carton of cigarettes right now." And he makes it look so cool! But an old fashioned is a time-honored cocktail imbibed by the classiest of classy folks for decades. What about the cocktails that are completely made up for a TV show or a movie? Often, they are only there because they're important to the plot or because they're so disgusting that you just have to laugh at the idea of some poor schmuck having to drink that.
I've decided to be that poor schmuck for you and test a few from my favorite TV shows and movies.
Tootsie Roll: How I Met Your Mother
By and large the Tootsie Roll is the tamest entry on this list and a good way to ease into the experiment. This cocktail was invented for the episode "Slutty Pumpkin" of the first season of How I Met Your Mother. The Slutty Pumpkin created this drink at Halloween and claims it "tastes like an alcoholic Tootsie Roll." The man-child in me insists on renaming it "Impossibly Awesome." The adult-man part of me says, "You already had me at 'alcoholic'; I don't even need to hear the rest."
The Cocktail
Ted: "So, we're at the bar and I see her mix Kahlua and root beer. A cocktail she invented herself. And she called it the Tootsie Roll, because it tastes like an alcoholic Tootsie Roll."
Ingredients:
1 part Kahlua
1 part root beer
Since there are no official measurements for this drink, I decided to just fill my glass with half Kahlua and half root beer. Your measurements should be done with the utmost precision.
I didn't have actual Kahlua, but I used coffee liqueur. It says "imported" on the bottle, so I assume it's some top-shelf stuff. The drink itself delivers on the promises of the Slutty Pumpkin; it does in fact taste a lot like a Tootsie Roll. If I have one suggestion, it's don't go for the joke shot like I did up there -- do some actual measuring. The first one I made had way too much coffee liqueur and not enough root beer. Once I remedied that oversight, the drink was pretty delicious. So much so that I had three more and had to place the experiment on hold while I took a nine-hour nap on the floor.
The next night, I picked it back up.
Skittlebrau: The Simpsons
I've been watching The Simpsons since as long as my eyes worked. I remember watching the episode "Bart Star," in which Homer first mentioned this drink to Apu, and thinking, "Yeah, I could get on board with that." Unfortunately, I was only 11 at the time and still several days away from my first alcoholic drink. Since I turned 21, however, something caused me to completely forget the concept of Skittlebrau until now.
The Cocktail
Homer: "I'm feelin' low, Apu. You got any of that beer that has candy floating in it? You know, Skittlebrau?"
Apu: "Such a product does not exist, sir! You must have dreamed it."
Homer: "Oh. Well, then just gimme a six-pack and a couple of bags of Skittles."
Ingredients:
Beer
Skittles
My excitement for this drink was not unfounded. I am a fan of everything the Skittlebrau stands for. I started out with a modest pile of Skittles in the bottom of the glass.
After that, I poured just enough beer to cover the candy and gave it a 30-second spin cycle so I could soak up the delicious candy-coating.
After creating that putrid-looking mud puddle, I added the rest of the beer. The dissolved candy-coating mixed with the foam to create a delicious fluffy cloud of beer and candy. I want to find a way to market just the foamy part, because it is delightful.
When the foam finally settled, I gave the whole thing a little stir and took a sip. I honestly could have had five of these things, but after the Tootsie Roll fiasco the night before, I practiced some self-control. You know, like an adult? The Skittles go extremely well with the smooth taste of the beer, and the two flavors complement each other very well. I can't think of a beer this wouldn't go well with, so seriously, just start filling your pockets with Skittles before you go to the bar, and you'll see what I mean.
We're off to a great start. I was really afraid that these would be awful. But if current trends have anything to say about it, there's absolutely no way I have to worry about that.
Thankstini: How I Met Your Mother
The good thing about 80 percent of How I Met Your Mother taking place in a bar is that the odds of them mentioning creative cocktails are hecka high. That's the case with the Thankstini, a drink created for those who love Thanksgiving but don't feel like paying those outrageous Thanksgiving prices. Barney Stinson invented the Thankstini to be an entire Thanksgiving dinner in one glass. It's a very creative cocktail, I have to admit, but that being said, it's also one of the worst things that's ever happened to me.
The Cocktail
Barney: "The Thankstini. A fun and delicious new novelty drink I invented. Cranberry juice, potato vodka, and a bouillon cube. Tastes just like a turkey dinner."
Ingredients:
1 part vodka
2 parts cranberry juice
1 bouillon cube (chicken)
Vodka-cranberries are awesome. I don't care who you are; if you don't like vodka-cranberry, you can go drown in a sea of dicks. The Thankstini was almost no exception.
The exception manifested itself in that tiny red cube of ass right there. I made myself a typical vodka-cranberry in a shaker and poured it over the bouillon cube.
The drink tasted awesome, and that was a problem. There was no conflict involved! If you want an article about me just drinking vodka-cranberries, I suggest you head on over to my Sex And The City fan blog. The problem is that a bouillon cube is essentially like if you ran your chicken stock through a car crusher. The dense little cube needs to be boiled in water for it to dissolve. Here, it was sitting in an ice-cold martini glass. So I solved this issue the way I solve most of my problems: I started jabbing it with a stick until it finally broke.
So now I had little chunks of poultry floating around, and I was ready for a proper shot at the Thankstini.
And that's when my soul began escaping through my tear ducts. The bouillon cube almost completely cancels out the rest of the flavors. It tastes like vodka-flavored ramen, which sounds like it would be amazing but in reality is salty, chunky, and unpleasant. I was not drunk enough to endure this, so I ended up dumping most of it down the drain and then burned the glass out back in a cleansing ceremony, just for good measure.
The Old Spanish: 30 Rock
Let me get this out of the way: I hate olives. I hate olives unless they're surrounded by nachos and I have a futuristic laser gun that disintegrates olives. Combining that with wine sounds about as much fun as drinking another Thankstini. But when Matthew Broderick makes up a funny drink on a popular TV show, sometimes you have to step up and take the challenge. I begrudgingly decided to do that.
The Cocktail
Ingredients:
Red wine
Tonic water
Olives
For my Old Spanish, I chose a fine WTF!! pinot noir. Something I did not expect was the combination of wine and tonic water being any good. Kind of like a sparkling cider of some variety. Even after adding the olives, my main focus was on how good this supposedly disgusting drink was. Things with this cocktail were going great ... until I looked down and saw that one of the olives had started peeling in the glass.
I also noticed some of the olive oil floating on the top of the wine/tonic mixture, which caused me to start tasting the olives in addition to the wine/tonic mixture. Still, not a terrible drink -- at least not as terrible as it sounds. At any rate, I only managed to get about halfway through this cocktail before I poured it out and then ate a bar of soap to combat the olive aftertaste.
It did not work. It just made my mouth taste like soapy olives.
Flaming Moe: The Simpsons
Even if you haven't watched the show in 15 years, you have to remember the Flaming Moe. It's the drink Homer invented that Moe stole and made him famous. The characters in that episode make the drink sound so good that there was no way I couldn't include it on this list. I remember enjoying it, but I don't remember finishing it, which is odd because the glass was empty and I had taken quite a few notes that become less and less coherent.
The Cocktail
Homer: "I decided to mix the little bits that were left in every liquor bottle. In my haste I had grabbed a bottle of the kids' cough syrup. I don't know the scientific explanation, but fire made it good."
Ingredients:
Little bits left in your liquor bottles
Children's cough syrup
In my case, it was a little bit of rum, some whiskey, SoCo with lime, tequila, and Scotch. I mixed them all together in a glass, then added a capful of children's cough syrup.
Like Homer, I too passed the first test: I didn't go blind. The drink itself was very good, especially since I was already a fan of all these liquors by themselves. If I had one suggestion, it would have been to add more cough syrup to supplement the strong liquor taste this drink had going on. But I couldn't justify adding more medicine to the glass, so I left it the way it was. Now for the fun part. Since I value my eyebrows and a few other parts of my face that could go up in a fireball, I took the proper safety precautions before lighting my drink on fire.
It turned out I had taken all those safety precautions for nothing. The goddamn thing just would not light. I eventually got out from behind my hidey-hole and basically shoved the lighter into the mixture, but with no success.
The cough syrup must have been a retardant, because pretty much every bottle I used was 80 proof, which should have been plenty to cause at least a first-degree burn.
So I dug through the bar shelves and eventually found something that was alcoholic enough to burn. I didn't get a huge plume, but the glass did go up in flames.
The flame didn't work like it did in the show; the drink tasted exactly the same, albeit warmer, than it did before I lit it on fire. Which was absolutely fine with me, apparently, because I must have downed the whole thing and passed out without even realizing it. When I woke up, I was beyond hungover. Something about mixing 13 different kinds of alcohol didn't agree with me so much. Luckily, the last drink on my list was supposed to help with that.
Redeye:
I cursed my own heart the following morning when I woke up with a very abysmal hangover and nobody to blame but myself and all of you. I was relieved, however, when I remembered that my final drink was also known as a hangover cure. My relief quickly turned to retches over the toilet when I remembered what was in it.
The Cocktail
Ingredients:
Beer
Tomato juice
1 egg
2 Advil
Every part of the preparation was a struggle, but I managed to get the ingredients together for this monstrosity. I poured a little bit of beer into the glass and added the tomato juice to it.
By the way, these two drinks together create the perfect smell for someone who already wants to die from vomit-related injuries. Next, I tossed in the Advil and watched them start to dissolve from the bottom of the glass.
At this point, I'm hanging on by a thread. My stomach wants to come up, and I don't want to let it. So I add the last ingredient: an egg.
The bartender in the movie didn't mix the drink, so neither did I. I just took a big swig and choked down that first gulp. Awful. Just an awful taste and an awful feeling. I know raw egg doesn't have a taste, but I could absolutely taste it and it tasted like remorse. I drank down to where I could see the yolk, then gave up on the rest. It wasn't helping; in fact, I think it just made things worse. For me, this drink essentially undid all the good things Tom Cruise gave us with Edge Of Tomorrow, and I don't know that I can ever forgive him for that.
If there is any lesson you should take away from this, it's that your parents were right: Don't try anything you see on TV. Or you will die.
Follow Erik on Twitter @HugeFrigginArms.
For more from Erik, check out 6 Awful Things You Learn During A Rabies Scare and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Dying.
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