There’s a lot of really stupid writing about drinking out on the web.  From idiotic lists of shots with mayonnaise in them to assholes telling you to drink antifreeze to people telling you to pour alcohol into your asshole, drinking advice on the web ranges from retarded to downright life-threatening.  Nobody seems interested in achieving and maintaining a high-quality level of drunkenness (or what I call Perfect Drunk).  They all want to make sure you’re so wrecked you puke all over your now-former fiancé and wind up naked on the front lawn spooning with a VERY unhappy neighborhood dog.  That is not what this article is about.

It IS, however, about this: tips on how to get to your personal Perfect Drunk as quickly as possible while keeping comfortable and minimizing chances of making yourself sick.  So it is with much fanfare and rapturous applause that we present:

Part 1: The Setup

So…you’ve decided that you’re going to get shithammered tonight.  Good for you! To start your night off right, you need to kickstart your system with something.  We suggest:

1. A Shot - Duh.  The less sweet and the fewer mixers, the better.  No point in starting your stomach off with a nasty syrupy mess.  Booze is going to make sweet sweet love with your stomach tonight, so the two might as well get acquainted now.

2. Pound a Beer - If a shot doesn’t meet your fancy, kill a beer.  Doesn’t matter how you do it –funnel, shotgun, Bierstick or a plain old CHUG– get that sumbitch in your body as quickly as possible.  You’ll have plenty of time for leisurely sipping later.

Dirty dishes, shmirty shmishes…you’ve got drinking to do!

Part 2: The Steady Drink

You should always have at least one drink in your hand, if achieving Perfect Drunk is your mission.  This will be your sipping drink throughout the night.  Always keep it full, and always keep sipping on it.  You have a few options:

1. Straight Alcohol - With Perfect Drunk as your goal of the evening (or morning, we don’t judge), diluting your alcohol with a mixer is keeping you from your goal.  So if this is what you choose, be it martini or wine or bourbon, keep on sippin’.  However, if you’re not able to stomach straight booze, you have another option…

2. Booze and Diet Soda - No, this isn’t about keeping your girlish figure (stick to the salad if that’s your concern).  Research shows that mixing a drink with a diet soda boosts alcohol-to-system ratios by as much as 50%.  Something in the diet drink chemicals actually increases the alcohol absorption to your bloodstream.  Bonus! However, you may not prefer straight liquor or sweetened libations, in which case…

3. Beer and a Shot - If beer is your preferred method of intoxication, give it a boost with a shot of hard alcohol (also known as a sidecar or a depth charge).  In Russia a beer with a shot of vodka in it is called a Yorsh, and the flavor of the vodka is barely noticeable.  I personally love a Boilermaker, which is a beer with a shot of whiskey (preferably bourbon).  Pick a medium-dark beer like Newcastle or Amber Bock for the best flavor combination with the whiskey*.

Holy shit…can they really do that?  Is that technology out there?

Part 3: The Build

If you just start with a shot and then keep drinking, you may eventually get where you want to be, but we’re trying to fasttrack this bitch.  You’re going to need to punctuate your sipping drinks with other drinks.

1. Take Shots - Noticing a trend?  One or two shots per sippin’ drink that you go through should be adequate, but use your discretion.  You may want to ramp up even faster in the beginning.  Listen to your body (trust your hips, I’ve heard they don’t lie).

2. Play a Drinking Game - Doesn’t matter which one really, but playing a game is obviously going to speed up your drinking while being a fun way to pass the time.  This does not mean you stop drinking your Steady Drink; whatever it is, keep drinking it regularly. Your drinks in Asshole, beer pong, Brooklyn or whatever are merely boosts to your main drinking.

What are you thinking about you toolbag?  It’s not like there’s skill involved.  Pick a card and drink already.

Part 4: Maintaining the Buzz

Hooray, you’re drunk! You’ve done it!  Resist the urge to call your parents to let them know of your great achievement (they won’t be nearly as proud as you are).  But you’re not done yet…keeping yourself in the state of Perfect Drunk is serious business, so here’s what you do:

1. Keep Drinking - But tone it down a notch.  It’s not easy, because you’ll want to keep taking lots of shots because some stupid part of your brain figures that if This Much Booze = Perfect Drunk, then MORE Booze = MORE PERFECTER DRUNKerEST (don’t even try to tell me that’s not the kind of words your brain makes up with when you’re PD).  This is not how things work.  You’ll have to keep drinking to stay at the level you are, but reel it in a bit.  Remember that alcohol doesn’t work immediately, and it needs time to work through your system.  Not that you’ll remember this when you’re PD, but at least I can say I tried.

2. Eat Something Occasionally - Remember, this is about keeping a solid buzz for a long time.  Having a little food in your stomach to soak things up will keep you from rounding the corner too quickly and skidding off of Happy Drunk Drive and careening headlong into Pukesville Gorge.  Keep it simple: chips, pretzels, pizza bagels, etc.  Leftover sushi is not your friend right now.

3. Do Something - Sitting there and doing nothing but drinking is an easy way to go over your limit without realizing it.  We’ve all had that moment where we’ve been sitting for a while and drinking, then go to stand up and say “Whoa!” as The Drunk clops us right in the chops.  Moving around, talking to different people at a party or whatever will help you keep tabs on just how inebriated you are and allow you to gauge your intake.

“What do you mean there’s nothing left to drink?  I had like 10 bottles!”

Part 5: Denouement

Eventually, your blissful journey will have to end (unless you’re a very successful hobo or an incredibly wealthy person without responsibility).  It was a great ride while it lasted, but let yourself down easy:

1. Drink Water - The single best hangover prevention/cure.  Change out your sippin’ drink to water when you’re starting to wind down to make the next morning a little easier.

2. Go to Sleep - What better way to end a night of pure joy than with good old fashioned SLEEP.  If there are repercussions to pay for your wanton consumption, let them wait until morning.  End the evening on a high note and sleep the sleep of angels.  Maybe even with an angel, if you’re lucky.

This picture is titled “Sleep Little Angel”.  That’s friggin’ hilarious. Shame about that beer though.

The fine art of getting sublimely hammered is not an easy one.  It’s very easy to oversteer in one direction or the other, so hopefully this guide will assist you in your journey to Perfect Drunk.  Have any tips you think we missed (highly unlikely), leave them in the comments!

Another blissful night of debauchery ends with you straddling some fence.  When will you ever learn?

Some final notes:

• Don’t try to take shortcuts like drinking on an empty stomach, sleep deprived, or mixing booze and pills.  This is not Drinking to Puke or Endanger Yourself, so don’t.
• This is not an article for new drinkers or people who rarely drink.  This is for those of us who drink on a fairly regular basis and have a medium-to-high tolerance level.  Get your game up, NEWB, then come back.
• You may not need to try all these methods at once.  Try them out one by one and see what works for you.
• Know your own limits.  Don’t drink more than you know you should just because it says so here.  You know you, so don’t be stupid and have your jerk family members come and sue us after you die of alcohol poisoning because “Derrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…. DrinkPlanner told me to do this!”.  You’re an adult, and responsible for your own decisions.  To put it plainly for the super-dense: DrinkPlanner is in no way responsible for any injury or illness you incur while drinking.  Don’t be dumb.

*For a truly brain-melting experience, pair this up with a maduro cigar.  Seriously, these three flavors were born to be together.  Dark, smoky, complex and sweet…I’m telling you, if you’re a cigar smoker you should make this happen.  And if you’re not a cigar smoker…what have you been doing with your life?

This is, by far, the most elaborate beer pong table I’ve ever seen. LEDs sparkle and shine in time to the music. A swirling blue-light cauldron built in to the table de-crapifies your balls. For the right price (read: somewhere over $1000) they’ll even build one for you. Behold:

(You should also know that it was a Herculean feat of strength to hold back and not make about 700 ball-washing jokes while writing this.  This is a family drinking site, after all)

via :: Gizmodo

We have to admit, we love us some beer pong. Sure it’s an essentially stupid, frat-boy-esque “sport”, and yes it’s bound to load us up with more disgusting bacteria than we’re able to count but dadgummit, it’s earned a place in our frosty 1/4-filled Solo©-cupped hearts. It’s got just enough skill and more than enough crappy beer to make us lifelong fans. So when we first came across Pong-a-Long’s 33 Best Beer Pong Tables, our battered and damaged livers did a little jump for joy. Not just because we admire the creativity and exquisite craftsmanship that went into pretty much every table featured here, but because the “Ninjas vs. Pirates” table featured at #25 was designed and created by two of your very own DrinkPlanner staff members. It pretty much made our weeks to see it there.

That’s right, we’re not just alcoholic writers, we’re the friggin’ Presidents of this BITCH. We also dominated at the Beer Olympics at Run Around Sue’s last year, in case you want to further check our credentials. We are, in fact, the real deal.

It’s time to introduce a new feature here on DrinkPlanner.com: Champions of Drinking. We’ll use these posts to highlight those who excel in the ways of the alcoholic beverage consumption or craft in some way that gives all of us lowly only-drinks-with-our-buddies-or-by-ourselves folks something to aspire to.

Our hats are off to Anthony Alba, who has been recognized this year as the winner of the U.S. Stella Artois Draught Master Competition, held recently at PURE nightclub at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. In order to prove he was the best of the best, Anthony had to prove to six very serious judges that he had mastered the “Belgian Pouring Ritual”, an involved process that among its nine steps includes “beheading” a beer in order to get the best possible head of foam (not to mention the “purifying” and “sacrificing” portions. Seriously. Someone call the authorities or a priest or something). The competition required that he pour not only Stella, but Hoegaarden (one of our favorite hefeweizens) and Leffe Blonde from draught and bottle sources.

In October, Alba will go to Belgium to represent the good ol’ U-S of A in the Stella Artois World Draught Master Competition. We here at DrinkPlanner say best of luck to you Mr. Anthony Alba, and Godspeed you on your journey to Alcohol Hero in the eyes of all of us watching you from afar here at home. We know you’ll do us proud.

via:: Lyke 2 Drink

Though the World Series of Beer Pong has come and gone, and we were sadly unable to attend, this little gem by some local ATL boys reminded us that beer pong can be enjoyed year round. All you need are some friends, a table, a few cases of cheap beer and of course…balls. I give you…The Beer Pong Anthem:

Sure, it’s pure suburban white-boy ridiculousness, but as these kinds of things go, it’s not that bad. They seem to realize how ridiculous they’re being, and so we’re able to forgive them.

(and I do have to agree with one commenter on youtube says about something that happens early on in the video: “only bitches blow”. Everybody knows that. I’m just sayin’…if it should ever happen that I play against these guys, that shit will not be allowed. Carry on.)

In keeping with the last post’s beer pong theme, here’s a video of some seemingly impossible feats of beerpongery.

Once again the World Series of Beer Pong is upon us, and we’d be remiss not to mention the biggest event in competitive drinking since Hemmingway played as number 16 on the Idaho Inebriates. Stalwart competitors from across this great country gather every year in the world capital of alcoholism-denial and shotgun weddings/divorces/30-minute hooker interludes…a.k.a. Las Vegas Nevada (”Where dreams go to die!”) to toss balls and guzzle mass-produced American beers until they keel over in a drunken stupor, or (the much less-likely prospect) arise in the sweaty victory that only a blessed few reach in a lifetime (holy shit that was a long sentence). A surprising $50,000 (who knew drunks had that much spare cash?) goes to the victors, presumably to spend on more booze.

A quick read through the official rules illuminates a veritable treasure trove of heretofore undiscovered hilarity…to wit, “The Dipshit Rule”, which plainly states (we’re not making this up) “If TEAM1 knocks over one of it’s own cups, that dipshit’s team (TEAM1) loses that cup(s). However, if the other team (TEAM2) also contains dipshits not paying attention that do not catch the first team of dipshits (TEAM1) knocking over their cup, then TEAM1 may keep that cup.” Good to know. There are five more pages of this hops-and-barley-fueled genius available in the Official Rules, if you are so inclined.

So if you aren’t able to make it out there this January 1-5th to join in the fracas, the least you can do is host a game at your home to entertain the local savages…or if state law doesn’t permit such a flagrant display of debauchery, you can at the very least play online and pretend the ball in your hand isn’t just a figment of your gin-soaked brain. But seriously…take your shot already….just watch your elbow….. and when you’re done, for crying out loud RE-RACK!