Ask DrinkPlanner is a reoccurring feature here where readers submit their questions, and the crack team at DrinkPlanner does our best to answer. Got a question about booze? Ask us!

Hey now! What’s that ya say?

“DrinkPlanner,

I heard that eating protein before you drink alcohol will increase your alcohol tolerance… How effective is it and are there other ways to increase my alcohol tolerance so I am not the first to pass out a party (and end up with [genitals] and [dangly genitals] drawn in marker all over my face)?

Thanks,

Always First to Fall”

Alcohol tolerance is a funny thing. Some are blessed with an abundance of it. Others earn it drink by drink. Then there are those, such as yourself, who have been cursed with a low tolerance to alcohol. Even worse, some people are actually allergic to it. Poor bastards.

There are a few things you can do, some long term, and others that you can do in preparation shortly before you git to partyin’. Let’s look at the short term ones first.

1. Eat a Big Meal With Lots of Protein, Fats, and Carbs - You heard right mon frère ivrogne, protein helps. But do yourself a favor and choose something that’s low-salt as well, as high-salt content foods will dehydrate you and work against you. These foods all slow the absorption of alcohol into the bloodstream and slow the drunkening process. You can also supplement throughout the night, eating nuts or other high protein foods. It’s only delaying your body absorbing the alcohol though, not stopping it. Word to the wise…this is not the time to try lots of new foods that your body may not be used to. Keep it simple.

Yep, just let the eyes roll back in your head and keep chompin’, Junior

2. Drink a Glass of Milk - Drinking a glass of milk will coat your stomach, again slowing the process down some and giving your body more time to absorb the alcohol instead of getting slammed with it all at once. Some people think this is a bad idea, that it will somehow “curdle” in your stomach as you drink other things throughout the night, but I say hogwash. As long as you don’t do it immediately before you start drinking, you should be fine. Unless you’re lactose intolerant, and then you’re an idiot for listening to this anyway.

3. Drink Water Between Drinks - You can decide your own pacing, but the more water you drink the more diluted the alcohol will be, and the impact of what you’re drinking will be lessened. It all depends on your current tolerance, but one glass of water to every one or two drinky-drinks you have should be plenty for most people. Yes, you will have to pee more, but that’s the price you pay to not wake up duct-taped to the ceiling with all of your body hair missing (Oh wait there it is, it’s stuffed in your mouth.  All of it).

I don’t think that’s the right shade of lipstick for his skin type

Now that you’ve got the pre-game situation locked down, let’s look at some long-term strategy…

1. Drink Regularly - As much as everyday, if you’re up for it. We’ve all heard about the reports that drinking can be good for you, so do it already! They say men who drink 1-2 alcoholic beverages a day, and women who drink 1 a day can benefit in many ways, from better heart-health to gallstones, booze is looking out for you. If you build up a good tolerance to drinking 1-2 drinks a day (or take that liver out for a spin, crank it up to 3-4 and see what she can really do), it won’t be such a shock to your system when you go out and party. This is the one sure-fire way to boost your tolerance if you stick with it.

2. Get Fatter - Seriously. Bigger people generally have bigger livers (the better to produce enzymes to break down alcohol with, my dear). They also have more ahhh…”real estate” for the alcohol to run its course through. More body = more blood for the alcohol to take a swim in. Certainly, there are plenty of other health risks if you increase your bodyweight to the point of being overweight or obese, but that’s up to you. You asked, so I’m telling you.

A final note on this: once you’re drunk, you’re drunk. Only time and water will help you at that point. Food won’t help, because the alcohol is already absorbed into your system. Caffeine will not help you, it will make you feel more alert, but you will most certainly still be drunk, so don’t think you can drink some coffee or chug a Red Bull and then drive home. Just sit tight, drink water, piss it out, repeat and eventually the booze will work its way through your system.

Or you can pass out on the couch, and take your chances…

That’s all for this week! Got a question about drinking? Ask DrinkPlanner!

This has absolutely nothing to do with booze or drinking whatsoever, but it’s pretty damn funny. Do yourself a favor and wait until at least the 40 second mark to watch the Best Buy employee in full action. You won’t be sorry you did…

Dude goes full throttle in no time at all. Having been in situations like that where all of the sudden crazy-white-dude pulls a near-psychotic dance move from out of nowhere makes the girls’ reactions that much more hysterical when he straight-up goes for it.

Hope everyone had a great Memorial Day!

Martini Groove finds some flavored vodka in a tube of all places

Lyke 2 Drink brings us a great list of white wines for the summertime

The Shark Book shows us how beer could be the fuel of the future

Liquor Snob has the world’s most expensive hooch

Another Wine Blog shares wine that goes great with BBQ

And Oh Gosh! tackles mixed drinks with orange liqueurs

First, I want to say thanks to everyone out there who commented and re-posted and enjoyed the 10 Commandments For Drinking Like a Man article. It has been (and continues to be) a huge interweb success and the overwhelming majority of responses to the article were crazy-positive. Thanks to everyone who Stumbled it and Dugg it and emailed it and blogged about it and everything else, you guys kick ass.

The following is for the small group of folks who didn’t get it, who got bent out of shape about it, and generally showed their ignorant asses to the interweb on my page and elsewhere. If you’re not one of these people, feel free to skip this. Most of it I first wrote in a few comments to the original article, but I felt they deserved to be fleshed out and posted here so anyone who has cried somewhere on the web about the list can read it and share with other crybabies and maybe you can hold a ceremony in honor of it at your next Crybabies, Bedwetters, and Drooling Mouthbreathers Convention.

There are two reasons I wrote the 10 Commandments article:

1. For FUN, and…

2. To help show people that there is a better way…

I first started writing the articles after hearing from a ladyfriend of mine who had gone on a date with a guy who not only drank three Sex on the Beaches (or is it Sexes on the Beach?) and several frozen margaritas on their date, but bragged about it. My heart went out to the poor bastard, he didn’t know any better. My friend called me immediately after going out with this guy to laugh at and mock him (in all fairness, not only for his drink choices, but they were definitely a symptom of the overall problem). I thought, “Hey, I have the ability and website to help young men across the country to avoid this type of mockery and no-second-date-getting, I should put my powers to use for good.” So I did, and the 10 Commandments are what came out of that.

My only goal on this site is to INCREASE people’s enjoyment of drinking, and that if they set aside the sugar-laden syrupy frozen whatevertheshits they’re drinking for a minute and learn to enjoy the complexities and qualities that their booze has intrinsically from the start, they’ll begin to enjoy a world they never have before. Booze has so much to show us, so many secrets to whisper and so many places it can take us, and I want people to find these things and enjoy them like I have.

WAAAAAAH! Somebody said something I don’t like on the internet!

This small handful of malcontents have had such a violent, irrational, negative response to this article, and I’m mostly puzzled as to why. The best I can figure is that these are people who are so insecure with who they are or what they’re drinking that they get so flustered that when someone somewhere who doesn’t know them (namely, me) might be implying that they’re not 110% manly for their drink choices that they have to leap on their keyboards and pound with all their might, rushing to call me a latent homosexual (or conversely: homophobic. The haters are a confused bunch), sexist, douchey, and whatever other names they’re able to form through their furious impotent typing until they feel like they’ve regained sufficient “masculinity” to carry on with their lives (a variation on that is that they’re the insecure women who are with men who don’t drink exactly as I’ve written and feel the need to rush to their defense. Same thing in my book).

Honestly, drink whatever the hell you want. I’m just trying to help people be better drinkers, possibly open them up to things they haven’t tried before, and essentially spread the good news. If you’re on a date and the woman you’re with snickers when you order a Sex on the Beach (and she will), you can puff yourself up and bluster on and on about “real men don’t care what other people think”, but it’ll be clear to her and anyone else in earshot that if you didn’t care, you wouldn’t have such a knee-jerk defensive crybaby reaction. And you won’t get laid. Bonus for you! But you can’t say you weren’t warned (or rather, educated better).

So relax people. It’s the internet for crying out loud. If it makes you feel better about yourself to call me names and insist that you can drink Blue Razzatinis all day long and still be the manliest man who ever was, if that’s how you want to spend your time, then by all means: GO FOR IT! Be somebody!

I’ll still be here…drinking and writing, and having a blast doing it.

PS. No, you can’t drink me under the table.  Speculate all you want, but if we ever met, and it ever went down, you would lose.  I don’t write this because I’m a casual-sometimes-one-glass-of-red-wine-with-dinner drinker.  I’m a professional, and I come by it honestly.

Ask DrinkPlanner is a reoccurring feature here where readers submit their questions, and the crack team at DrinkPlanner does our best to answer. Got a question about booze? Ask us!

Hot diggity-dog, it’s Ask DrinkPlanner time!

“Help!

One of my daughter’s friends is having a wedding shower and they’ve asked me to tend bar. They have special theme drinks and everything (that amount to Chocotinis with a slice of Ding Dongs on the rim of the glass). I also know people are going to be asking for all kinds of mixed drinks I’ve never made. I’ve drank like a man my whole life, so about the only thing I know how to do is pour a beer or down a whiskey. I need a crash course in mixology STAT!

What do I need to know to survive my one-night bartending gig? Any tips would be a big help.

Forever in your debt,

On the Rocks in a Hard Place”

When I, the DrinkPlanner, was a younger man, I found myself in a similar situation. I had a friend who knew I enjoyed drinking (and that I could use some cash), so she asked me to tend bar at her sister’s wedding reception. Sounded like a great gig to me, make some drinks (drinking while I was doing it) and earn some quick money. Then I realized…I only knew how to make what I liked to drink. I thank God I didn’t have to deal with a Signature Ding-Dong Chocotini abomination (there’s a great joke in there somewhere, damnit) like you do, but here are some quick tips to get you prepared for your debut. Ready? Places everyone!!! It’s…

FIRST and foremost, be courteous and HAVE FUN! It’s a party damnit, so smile and laugh and be the jovial good-times barkeep everyone knows you can be. Unless your host is some kind of serious jerk, you’ll be able to drink while performing your duties (don’t get plastered though, save that for the afterparty), so enjoy it and do your part to make the event a blasty-blast for everyone. Nobody wants to remember the wedding as “that one where the surly-yet-devilishly-handsome bartender threw a Cosmo at the best man and called him a ‘Nancy-pants bitch’ and then drop-kicked the flower girl”. Actually, that kind of sounds like a fun wedding. Anyway, on to the important bits…

If (and it’s a big IF) you’re able to, Preperation…

1. Try to Get a Bar Back - Tending bar is hard work, and professionals who work in bars have people to help them with the more menial tasks so they can focus on the bigger ones. Replenishing ice, getting fresh glasses, opening wine bottles, lugging beer kegs or cases, cutting and prepping garnish…all these things take time. Time is something you won’t have when 15 thirsty people are standing in front of you looking for their free drinks. The great thing about weddings and events like them is there’s always some cousin or nephew or whatever around who can help you with these time-consuming but necessary parts of running a decent bar. Do yourself a favor and ask ahead of time if there’s anyone around who can fill this role, because any place where you can cut some of the stress out of the job ahead of time is going to be to your benefit.

2. Find Out What They’ll be Serving, and Plan Accordingly - On one hand, you’re the poor bastard who has to garnish the Chocolate Apocalypse with a damned Little Debbie product clearly named after wieners…on the other hand, you know that you’re going to have to do that, and you can prep ahead of time. Talk to your host and find out what they’re planning on stocking the bar with, and how much. If there’s a special drink they want made or highlighted, find out what it is and how to make it in advance. From the other ingredients available, you should be able to deduce what can be made from them, so look through a decent bar book for this. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT go to the internet looking for recipes. DO NOT use services like Webtender’s “In My Bar” to figure out what can be made from the available ingredients. That service and others like it have their place, but this ain’t it. Any yahoo with a keyboard and dream can enter in drinks to online services, and that gives you THOUSANDS of crappy drinks that people made in their basements and technically don’t even exist, and nobody is going to ask for. You should invest in a good bar book anyway. I received the Mr. Boston Official Bartender’s & Party Guide when I turned 21, and it’s served me well so far. Your mileage may vary.

BE PREPARED, or you may be forced to make unsavory choices

3. Make Sure You Have the Right Tools for the Job - Here’s a quick list of things you’ll need to run your bar efficiently and with as little confusion as possible:

Wine openers
Bottle openers
Shakers
Knives
Stirrers
Towels
Trash can
Pourers for the bottles

The pourers aren’t necessary, but they’ll make things a LOT easier by helping you measure things out without having to use a jigger or shot glass. For a measure of 1 shot (aprox. 1 1/2 oz.) do a 6-count (counting “1-and-2-and-”) and you’re there. It’s much easier than using something else to measure it out, which will then have to be washed out and blah blah blah more time wasted. You’re most likely going to be in a make-shift bar-esque space, not a real bar, so don’t forget the towels or trash can, because there will be spills, mishaps, and garbage. Getting those things taken care of quickly and cleanly will only make things easier.

Ready now? On to The Big Show…

It’s her special day…make sure she forgets most of it

1. Make Drinks in Bulk When Possible - 3 people want the same thing? Great! Set up the glasses and pour each ingredient all at once into each glass, or load a triple-dose into the shaker and knock ‘em out. Oh and that reminds me…

2. Know Which Drinks Should Be Shaken vs. Stirred - The general rule of thumb is if the drink contains thicker, opaque ingredients (e.g. fruit juice, creams, etc.) then it should be shaken to fully mix the contents. Drinks with mostly clear ingredients should be stirred (unless they’re served “up” as some martinis are). Put a straw or swizzle stick in drinks like that so people can swirl them to their satisfaction. If someone has a request that’s outside the norm, they’ll most likely let you know.

***A Word About Martinis***

Martinis can be made many different ways. Gin, vodka, rocks, up, dry, dirty, olive, twist, stirred, shaken…they all add up to a million ways to give you a headache. When in doubt, ASK how they’d like it prepared. Most people know you can’t just ask for a “martini” and get what you want. They’ll be more than happy to specify.

No martinis? No such luck, Bub

3. Pour Two-Ingredient Mixed Drinks in a 1/4-to-3/4 Alcohol-to-Mixer Ratio - Whew, that was a mouthful. Rum and Coke? Vodka cranberry? Gin and Tonic? They all more or less get poured in this same ratio. You can go as high as 1/3-to-2/3 ratio, but any more than that and people are going to cry that they can actually taste their alcohol. I personally drink these drinks much stronger than this, but for the average non-professional boozer, 1 part alcohol to 3 parts mixer is the way to go. You can always add more if they want it. Oh, but before you start pouring anything…

4. Fill the Glass Full With Ice - It seems to me that most people who don’t bartend for a living or aren’t ahhh..serious about booze don’t know this one, but it’s pretty important. Alcohol will beat the hell out of your ice, and melt it quickly. Fill the glass pretty much to the rim with ice before you start pouring, so they have a drink that will stay cool for a while, and they won’t be stuck with a few sad little ice-slivers at the top of their drink in 5 minutes. Nobody wants that. It’s not scamming anyone out of their booze or anything like that, it’s just the best way to prepare drinks, and makes eyeballing measurements more accurate.

Remember, it’s your job to make sure stupid photos like this happen!

What Do I Do When I Don’t Know a Drink?

It’s going to happen, so how do you handle it? You’ve got a few options.

1. Have a Book of Drinks Handy - It’s not a bad idea to have one on hand. It won’t have every drink in the world, but if a dapper gent approaches the bar asking for a Manhattan or an Old Fashioned and you don’t know where to start, the book would be a great place to start (obviously). After all, you’d hate to disappoint a fellow boozer, right? But you may have an ever-growing line of thirsty folk impatiently lining up, and you obviously won’t have time to look up every drink, so you could…

2. Ask - Most people know their favorite drinks and make them at home for themselves, so they’ll already know how to make one and be happy to tell you. They want it made right after all, so it’s in their interest to help you get the drink prepared just the way they like it. However, not everyone is so knowledgeable, so you may have to resort to a third option when you’re in a pinch…

3. Guess - Do you know how to make an Appletini? No? Me neither! If I was plucked from my seat this very second and placed behind a bar and forced to make an Appletini at gunpoint (which is probably how it would have to go down for that to happen), I’d have to guess. I’ve never made one, never ordered one in a bar, but I think I may have taken a sip of one that a friend had ordered once, so…hmm. If I had to guess, I’d say 5 parts vodka, 4 parts neon-green apple vomit, and 1 part triple sec (or maybe sour mix?), shaken and served in a martini glass even though it is no kind of martini. Would I be right? Probably not, but I’m pretty sure I’m close on it. Fruit-flavored drinks will be more forgiving in over- or under-pouring the proper amounts. You and the drinker both have the benefit of this being free booze, so if you get it wrong, nobody gets too upset. They’ll probably drink it out of courtesy (or leave it unfinished on a table), and the next time around say “Uhmm…could you maybe use a little more of the green apple crap this time, please?” That, or they decide you’re hopeless and order a glass of wine. Either way, problem solved!

So I hope this helps, and best of luck! If anybody has any other tips for our boozer-in-distress, leave them in the comments. Got a question about drinking? Ask DrinkPlanner!

Here’s where I tell you what is the what in the booze blog world…click ‘em!

Just go read…well everything, at what may be my new favorite blog Sorry I Missed Your Party

Getfrank teaches us all about port wine

College Drinker lets you know what it is about booze that dehydrates you

Martini Groove has the nominees of the 2008 Spirit Awards

And after the cut, Liquor Snob brings us a video of a beer pong shot I’ve never heard of…

Read the rest of this entry »

Ain’t it the damn truth?

via one of my favorite blogs about marketing and social objects :: gapingvoid

“Wine to me is passion.  It’s family and friends.  It’s warmth of heart and generosity of spirit.”

-Robert Mondavi

Late yesterday, the drinking world lost a true pioneer and Champion of Drinking.  Robert Mondavi, the first to build a post-prohibition winery and founding father of the California wine industry passed away.  He had the guts to do what few thought possible, and his actions helped turn California into one of the top-selling wine regions in the world.  If not for him, you’d probably never have heard of Napa Valley, Sonoma Valley, Paso Robles or any of the other wine producing regions in California.  He worked his entire life as an evangelist for the wine industry and pushed it forward in the name of great winemaking.

So if you’ve got a bottle of Mondavi that you’ve been waiting to open (or you could go out and buy one), tonight might be a good night to open it and toast to a man who was truly a Champion of Drinking.

via :: Robert Mondavi Winery

Ask DrinkPlanner is a reoccurring feature here where readers submit their questions, and the crack team at DrinkPlanner does our best to answer. Got a question about booze? Ask us!

The manly drinking theme continues! A reader wonders…

“DrinkPlanner,

What are some manly shots I can order when I am out with the guys? Me and my friends are trying to live by your 10 Commandments for Drinking Like a Man, but aren’t sure what to order other than Jaeger and Jaeger Bombs.

Help!

Ladies No More”

Relax fellas…I know it’s not easy ordering shots when out on the town. Most shots are designed to be easy to drink (or designed by assholes to make you puke, which isn’t very manly), especially when in the mixed company of your ladyfriends. Jaeger certainly walks the line of being high-alcohol content but relatively easy to drink, but there’s so much more out there. Eventually you have to grow up and stop drinking like a 21-year old college freshman and find some new booze. The thing is, bars want everyone to drink and have a good time, and that’s all well and good when you’re out with a big group, but sometimes men need to be men and drink like men with men in the most manly of fashions. We need to drink like our ancestors. Like warriors. We need to drink like the mountain-wrestling bear-punching KINGS we were born to be. It’s in our blood damnit, and I’m here to help… I’ve got the medicine for what ails ya (here’s a hint: it’s booze!). So lace up your booties, Beatrice, it’s…

1. Whiskey - If you’d really read those 10 Commandments, you’d have noticed it right there at the top at #1. Whiskey. And where shots are concerned, bourbon and Tennessee whiskey are where you should go. I hate to sound like a broken record, but the truth of the matter is that we as men have lost our way. Did you know that 50-some years ago, 80% of ALL alcohol sales were whiskey? Our fathers and grandfathers and on and on back drank whiskey, and so should you. So if you don’t like it…well golly, it sounds like the problem is with you, doesn’t it? Bourbon is the national spirit of the United States for a reason. Not loving it is akin to sharing a slice of bald-eagle-and-apple pie with Bin Laden while crapping on a burning flag and bad-mouthing your mother’s meatloaf. Dadgum freedom hater.

Don’t you DARE make that face, Sally

2. Tequila. Straight Up. - I’ve already told you how to drink it, so do it! You can (almost) never go wrong with an alcohol 80 proof or above, and tequila is an easy one that most everyone can drink without having to strain their tear ducts crying about. Truth be told, drinking tequila chilled with salt and lime is called “training wheels” (as I was once enlightened/humiliated by a waitress to find out), and if you’re really looking for manly drinking, you’ll drink it however the hell they choose to serve it, training wheels or not. Once on vacation I was with a group in a dumpy locals bar on the beach and we asked for 7 tequila shots. Lucky for us, we were being served by a jerk-ass waitress who decided room-temp tequila with no salt or lime was the way to punish us for having the gall to step into her establishment. While everyone else stared bug-eyed and bemused, starting to complain and cry at their shot glasses, I took control and said “F- it” and downed the dirty bastard without hesitation. The other guys with our group saw me do it, knew what was expected of them, and followed suit. While I was troubled at first that they didn’t immediately drink as I had, I had mad respect for them for repressing whatever girly instinct had been bred into them and joining me in the Brotherhood of Booze. We ordered another, and said “make ‘em just like the last ones” just to spite her.

3. Irish Car Bomb - Can any drink named after a horrible terrorist act really be girly? HELL NO! While the Hezbollah Hand-Grenade Lemonade languishes in obscurity, the Irish Car Bomb is an easy drink that any bar on the planet can and will make for you. While it contains the gender-questionable Bailey’s Irish Creme, it more than makes up for it with the inclusion of Guinness and Jameson. The fact that it doesn’t usually cost more than a regular shot, but includes not just a shot of booze PLUS half a glass of beer it certainly ups the man-factor. In the battle of paying a lot vs. drinking a lot….drinking a lot always wins.

Get drinkin’, gents

4. Three Wise Men - I’ve heard numerous variations on this over the years, but wikipedia has a very acceptable definition:

1. 1 part Johnnie Walker
2. 1 part Jack Daniels
3. 1 part Jim Beam

The wild-card I’ve seen thrown in with these guys is Jose Cuervo (just because he’s Mexican doesn’t mean he isn’t wise, RACIST). Which makes sense, because mixing 3 whiskeys together isn’t all that tough to drink or more manly than drinking just 1 whiskey. Including tequila would be quite the cruel joke (which is of course a joke I’ve played on many an unsuspecting novice).

5. Absinthe - If you care at all for your well-being, you will never drink this. It’s not even meant to be drank as a shot. I only include it because drinking it will literally age your entire body 17 years (and what’s more manly than being an old man?). It tastes like cough-syrup set on fire and then gargled and pissed out by Satan himself, is 140 proof, and spends its downtime thinking up new ways to murder puppies. Just because it’s now legal in the States does not mean you should drink it. I’d rather drink brake fluid chased by AIDS-needles than drink this horrible shit… but if you can stomach it without louching it or otherwise diluting it, you’re a stupider better man than I. I have a very personal aversion to