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?

Every once in a while we get a comment here at DrinkPlanner that brings up something that I feel needs to be addressed in a full-on front-page post.  I’ve only done it once before (under much less pleasant circumstances) but it happens that someone brings up something that leads me to believe that there may be some misconception about things I’ve written that are large enough that I feel the need to share with the whole class.  So, this is in response to a comment left here by mikhail7:

“after reading some of the other comments, I’ll say this, and DrinkPlanner, please disagree with me if you wish, I wont take it personally. A man should take things as they come. A man should not ever have to sugar coat or soften anything that is not meant to be softened. Whiskey, beer, Vodka, Rum and so on are made the way they are made for a reason. They are meant to be the way they are. Some men, who have a lack of testostorone, cannot handle things they way they are meant to be. So they have to put pink umbrellas in their drinks. And if you, a man, cannot obey at the very least commandment number one, you are no man. Please disagree with me, i like different opinions. Thank you”

Well since you asked mikhail7…ok, I disagree with you. While there are some things, like single-malt scotches, that are downright sinful to mix, many are greatly improved by the addition of other alcohols or mixers.  I mean, I get your point about things being made to stand alone, and many do that quite well and are absolutely best enjoyed that way, but there are also plenty of drinks that are designed to be mixed.  What would you do with vermouth except add it to a martini?  Or triple sec?  Or bitters?  Vodka is by and large a tasteless drink, practically BEGGING to be mixed with stronger flavors to make a better drink.  While I’m certainly no stranger to a shot of vodka, I like it better when it actually tastes like something.

There are tons of classic manly drinks that are mixed, from the martini to the Manhattan to the Pegu club.   I DARE you to go up to the old guy in the bar drinking an Old Fashioned telling him he’s not drinking a manly drink and see if you walk away with your nuts.  Hell, even Hemingway drank Daiquiris (which are really not at all girly in their classic form), and he was a hard-drinking seafaring bullfighting son-of-a-bitch like few others who have walked this world.

I have no reason to post this, but it’s from this series that’s so amazing I’m just going to stick them in posts whenever I feel like it

Beyond that, many things complement each other, and the once-lowly job of tending bar has in recent years been elevated to the level of “mixology“, all based on the art of creating amazing new drinks by combining alcohols and other mixers very specifically and creatively.  Whether born out of the locale the alcohol comes from or necessity of circumstances or complete accident, some very fine drinks are mixed.  In his discussion of the daiquiri, drink expert David Wondrich gives the following eloquent explanation:

“In fact, the daiquiri represents such an obvious marriage between local ingredients — rum, sugar, limes — and American technology — cocktail shaker, ice — that it would take the chowder-headedest duffer who ever buttoned a trouser not to invent it.”

And that’s exactly how drinks like the daiquiri and the margarita and mojito and cuba libre came about, because you’d have to be mouth-breathingly daft not to mix such clearly complimentary ingredients together.  God lovingly placed sugar cane and limes on the same continent for a good reason, and we’d be remiss not to take advantage of such a serendipitous happenstance of fate.

So I just wanted to clear the air to make sure it was understood that I’m not such a booze purist that I believe every single alcohol should always and no-matter-what be consumed straight up.  That’s all.

We’ve talked about tequila here before briefly, but Bill Bumgarner gives an excellent overview of what makes a good tequila good and a bad tequila bad.  An excerpt:

“Good tequila is almost always a tequila that is made from alcohol distilled from 100% blue agave. Specifically, the species Agave Weber Tequilana. This plant of the class Liliopsida (Lilies) has nothing to do with cactus. Blue agave is grown primarily in the Mexican state of Jalisco.

More specifically, Cuervo gold is a Tequila Mixto, Joven Abocado or, more precisely, young and adulterated tequila.

By Mexican law, adulterated tequilas are at least 51% blue agave. The other 49% is generally comprised of the absolute cheapest, nastiest, sugar cane based liquor. If you are familiar with big city corner bodegas, the cheap rum in the plastic bottle on the bottom shelf behind the counter. “Bum rum” we called it in NYC.

Adulterated tequila would not have any color. To give it color and take a bit of edge off, Cuervo (and others) add caramel. This ultra-nasty combination of cheap cane sugar alcohol and low quality agave distillate is the reason for the vicious hangover. Those massive nasty sugar molecules break down into all sorts of evils that take your body a long time to metabolize. Hence, a Cuervo/adulterated tequila hangover is a trip through hell.”

Definitely worth a read.

via :: Dethroner

For some reason once upon a time, someone decreed that beer in bottles was classier and cooler and better than beer in cans. That bottles should forever and for always be the gold standard of drinking and quality beer. Well guess what, kemosabe? They were DEAD WRONG. Well at least that’s what I believe, and guess what…it’s my website! So get ready to be taken to Can School, bitches!

I’m ready to present the argument that cans are superior to bottles….is there anyone out there with the plums to take me on? Let me present my arguments with numbers next to them:

1. Cans Are Opaque - Clearly the frontrunner in arguments against bottles, cans aren’t see-through, and therefore impervious to harmful UV rays and the damage of the horrible, accursed, butthole sun. It’s like your own personal keg, and we all know that draught beer is the best beer. Cans deliver beer to your face in it’s purest possible form, untouched by the dillweed rays of Sol, insulating against the trickery of summer. Cans rule.

BOOSH! Is your face ready for the Canpocalypse!?!

2. It’s Environmentally Superior - Cans are way way lighter than some heavy-ass glass. That equates to lighter trucks which means less gas spent on hauling beer from Whereverthehell straight to your ugly mug. Plus, they’re 100% recyclable. Less environmental waste > you getting plastered. Sorry dude.

3. Cans Almost Never Break - But bottles do. In shipping trucks and in retail stores, bottled beers slam against each other every time they’re moved from place to place, increasing your chances for a Shards ‘O Glass cocktail. Cans may scratch, may dent, may even burst…but they’ll never shoot hunks of razor-sharp glass down your throat. That’s the Can Promise!

4. High-Quality Microbeweries Are Already Doing It - Think cans are just for Milwaukee’s Best and Natty Lite? Tell that to Oskar Blues, the kick-ass microbrew who decided to go with cans over bottles and hasn’t looked back since. Their award-winning Old Chub, Dale’s Pale Ale, and Gordon brews (which I’ve all personally tasted) are able to go head-to-head with any microbrew out there. Just like many in the wine industry are moving to plastic corks and screwtops because they’re smarter in the long run, ahead-of-the-curve brewerys are choosing cans over bottles.

“Hi, I’m Gordon Beer, in a can and ready to kick ASS. If you’re feelin’ froggy, then jump sucka!”

5. They Just Drink Better - Maybe it’s just me, but the cans I’ve drank out of seemed way easier to sip or even chug from than most bottles. Not that chugging is the ultimate goal of drinking beer…but when you are chugging beer, cans just seem so much better suited for high-capacity drinking that bottles.

6. The “Ease of Use” Factor - Dismiss it if you want, but ease-of-use is something that cans have in spades. Pull the tab towards you and you’re ready for business. No need to tear up your hand trying to twist a cap off, or having to hunt down a bottle-opener. Want to pack up a bunch to take to the lake or the playground? Cans stack up well and are way more compact than gangly awkward bottles.

So there it is. By my count, that’s Cans: 6, Bottles: 0. If that were a hockey score, it’d be a massacre. So anyone care to dispute me? Take a swing at my argument in the comments* if you think you got the stones. Or if another website cares to take umbrage with me, post it up on your site and if the trackbacks in the comments don’t pick it up, I’ll link to it. I’ve been itchin’ for a showdown.

*And I mean this site’s comments, not like all you crybabies who leave comments on Stumbleupon where I can’t argue with you. That’s just not fair!

It’s official, summer is HERE. Time for fun in the sun, lounging poolside, big outdoor concerts, picnics, little league games…literally HUNDREDS of opportunities to relax and get plastered. Trouble is, many of these venues don’t provide alcohol (get with the times, puritan jerks!). I mean let’s be honest, getting hammered is probably the only legal way to enjoy a kid’s sporting event/Jack Johnson concert/romantic picnic. The places that DO serve expect you to pony up at least $10 for a sorry little cup of watered-down domestic beer. It’s enough to make a respectable drunkard sit inside and drink in the dark all day, shunning the summertime sun in defiance of overpriced booze and the unenlightened world’s teetotaling ways.

Have no fear my friends, DrinkPlanner is here to show you there is a better way, a way you can frolic and imbibe in the great outdoors to your heart’s content. Sure, it involves a little trickery, but you had no choice, THEY drove you to it. So without further ado I present…

So here we go…

1. Flasks - The classic accessory for the boozer on the go, it has stood the test of time and then some. Many a refined gent and discerning lady still use the flask to this very day for their on-the-town beverage needs. It pays to get a quality one, the one I own I only used once, because the piece of shit leaked as soon as I turned it on its side (when I sat down). The whole point is to be discreet, and here I had a big wet spot on my pants and reeked of bourbon (and that kind of thing is somewhat frowned upon at a baby’s baptism, I don’t think I need to tell you). Another downside is it LOOKS LIKE A FLASK so unless you’re super-sly about it, anyone who looks your way while you use it will know what you’re up to. So you may want to try…

2. Flasks That Don’t Look Like Flasks - Some of these are less obvious than others (for example, this camera one just looks like a rectangular square of metal). There are plenty of variations, but my personal favorite is the “Barnocular” fake binoculars, which hold a full 16 oz. They look like a decent pair of binoculars, can be held around your neck (which is very close to your MOUTH, bonus!), is separated in two (so you can transport two different types of booze if you like) and as I mentioned, holds 16 oz, which is more than double what most traditional flasks hold. The one downside is that most are made of metal, so anywhere you go that has a metal detector (like many sporting events or big concerts) you risk getting busted. So it might behoove you to take a look at…

3. The Beerbelly - A polyurethane pouch that secures around your midsection and holds A FULL 80 oz of glorious, life-enhancing booze. Is there a downside? Not really, unless you count looking like you’ve put on a few pounds. Chances are if you’re planning on toting 80 oz of anything to a venue, you’re an experienced enough drinker to already have developed your own beer belly, so I doubt that would be a deterrent. And guess what, they even have a version for your ladyfriends! Behold…

4. The Winerack - Not only can you hold 25oz of whatever mind-freeing beverage you choose, but it will make your boobs look bigger! Yep, a brassiere filled with sweet delicious booze is what’s on the menu. By the time you and your new friend consume your boob-booze, he won’t even notice that you went from a c-cup to an a-cup. But it would take one shallow son-of-a-bitch to demean the girl who shared the Water of Life with him directly from her bosom by turning around and judging her by the size of her blouseclowns. So maybe you want to play it safe and try the gender neutral…

5. Stadium Sippin’ Seat - Holds up to 300 lbs (huzzah, fatasses!), and 750 ml (which is equivalent to a normal bottle of wine or a fifth of hard liquor), the sippin’ seat is fantastic for drinking on the sly. It’s low down enough while sitting on it that most people won’t see it as you pour your tipple into whatever cup you can find. As an added bonus, your booze will literally be saving your ass from the pain of sitting on some God-forsaken bleachers to endure whatever stupid sporting event you’ve been dragged to (why couldn’t your retard nephew take up karate…that’s INdoors!). However, maybe your needs are more specialized…maybe you’re climbing the corporate ladder but just aren’t sure you can make it there without a sip of the good stuff along the way. Fear not my booze-brothers, for there is…

6. The Kooler Klub - Chock full ‘o booze and one “K” away from hardcore racism, the Kooler Klub is here to save you from the drudgery of hitting a small white ball at a slightly larger hole in the ground 18 times in a row for like a bazillion hours. 48 oz of liquid joy await your dispensing from within the Klub with the mere pushing of a lever. Granted, this is more specialized than the others, but is SO easily concealed and holds such a high quantity that we couldn’t leave it off this list. Impress your boss by being the only one in your group with the cajones enough to get obliterated in front of him. Don’t act like you’re a stranger to it.

So there you have it, 6 solid ways to get seriously DOOKIEFACED in front of family and friends without them ever noticing. If you’ve got other ways to sneak a sip of the good life behind the backs of others, leave it in the comments so we can all benefit from the sly ways of each other. We boozers need to stick together, sharing the ancient secrets and ways of boozers long forgotten in order to pass along the legacy of boozing masters down through the generations so that all may benefit.

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!

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&#