Just a little palate-cleanser for the first day after Tiki Month.
While I’m sure that Republic in Chicago is not at all my kind of place, and while I’m triply sure you aren’t going to get a well crafted blend of rum, lime, Luxardo, and grapefruit on the rocks if you were to order a Daiquiri there, I don’t care.
Merely feast your eyes on their new dress code, and raise your glass with me to say, Republic, I salute you!

(via FailBLOG)

This is intended to be the first in a new series of television series-based drinking games. This one is too perfect, we’ll see if any others end up working as well.

ABC’s Castle, starring Firefly’s Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic, is among Maggi’s and my favorite shows. If you are not watching it, you owe it to civilization to start. Actual intelligent, well-written television on the big networks desperately needs to be rewarded. The alternative is more of this.
I won’t go into the nature of the show much here, except to set up the game. Castle is what we like to call, a writer’s show, for a whole host of reasons. It is a mystery series about a writer. It features some fairly educated plotting and dialog. Even when the lead character is being infantile (which is often) he does it in an educated manner. And most importantly, Castle and his cohorts are always having fun with language.
Here’s the game, with comments.
In keeping with Castle’s character, players will equip themselves with a good single-malt scotch and sipping glasses.

• Whenever Castle makes a grammar related quip, take one sip.
• Whenever another character uses incorrect grammar, all players who notice it will lay a finger along their nose. Those who miss it must take a sip. (The bad grammar on the show is a little too obvious and too pervasive for a show written by good-natured Grammar Nazis. It has to be an inside joke.)
• Whenever Castle starts talking about “The Story”, take one sip.
• Whenever Castle gets people caught up in a story he’s telling, take a sip. You’ll probably hear dramatic or creepy music.
• Take two, if anyone actually believes him. You’ll definitely hear dramatic or creepy music.
• Every time Castle makes a pun, take a sip. Use it to drown out the groans.
• Whenever someone employs a form of the word “irony”, finish your drink.
• If Castle says that they used it correctly, refill and drink that too.

All of that group are language and grammar related. Here’s a supplemental list for some other drink-worthy Castle tropes you can add for a full Castle drinking game experience:

• Whenever Becket complains of Castle’s immaturity, take one sip.
• Whenever Ryan and Esposito start putting one over on Castle, take a sip.
• Whenever Castle is happy that someone has been brutally murdered, take a sip. If he claps his hands, take two.
• Each time Beckett uses sex to torment Castle, finish your drink.

In case you haven’t seen Castle yet, here’s a taste.

My last attempt at a drinking game would likely have left you passed out until about now. If that’s the case, and you are just now sobering up… may I suggest a drink?

UPDATE: Here is a whole Castle Drinking Game thread on a Castle fan site.
Most are good fan touches, but either don’t fit with my game’s theme, or just don’t work for a drinking game in general. But some are gold.
CastleTV.net language-related drinking game contributions:

• Every time Castle turns something innocent into innuendo, take one sip.
• Whenever you see Castle actually working on a book, take one sip.
• Whenever Martha is drinking, join her.

Other CastleTV.net gold:

• If Castle says, Bam said the lady, take one sip.
• If Alexis gives parental advice to Castle, take one sip. If Castle actually give parental advice to his daughter, take three.

A few mornings ago, the PeguWife called me in to see the local news. A local morning radio host and standup comedian named Dino Tripodis was on, promoting his new book, The 25 Days of Christmas Cocktailing: One Man. One Month. One Very Merry Mission. Since Dino is a very funny fellow, and the subject was cocktails, I sprang to Amazon to order a copy.
25 Days is a short, easy, and entertaining read, chronicling the author’s quest with some friends to invent and consume a new cocktail every single day from December 1 to Christmas Day in 2008. I’m not sure who would find a task like this more daunting, your average Joe, or someone who actually knows some mixology. His method for inventing the drinks was to come up with the name for the drink in the morning. (Some highlights: the We Three Kings Disoriented Are, and The George Bailey) He’d get home midday, and mix and taste to try to fit the name, then serve up his best result to his panel about 3PM. It is good to have self-employed friends…. Of course, this is not the way to produce an unbroken string of winner drinks, but the aim of the book is the humor and the journey, not the recipes.
Since Dino lives in that special hellish life known as being a “local celebrity”, he has to do things like answer long lists of questions from people like me, and do it with a smile. I therefore abused the privilege and I’ll illustrate this review with some of those answers.

The only difference between getting drunk with your mom as opposed to your dad is you feel worse about the fistfight afterwords.
—Dino Tripodis 1996

The drinks are presented in chronological order, and each has a quote from Dino’s standup act or his radio show, along with a tale relating how the drink came to be or something otherwise related.
I noticed a paucity of gin in his recipes, but hey, nobody’s perfect. Dino drank a lot of gin in college, he told me, but that’s because he tries “to be accommodating when it came to liquor choices and relationships. Lets not talk about the apple-tini run, if you don’t mind.”
Fat chance, Dino. I assure you that most of my readers are mocking you mercilessly right now….
One of the aims of the process, he says, was to give a workout to some of the bottles he doesn’t much use otherwise. He even added a few new liqueurs to his inventory during the adventure, like Chambord and Grand Marnier.
Although he invented the drinks last year, Dino is faithfully drinking them all again this year, day by day, which is a much easier task. Last year he had to drink the mistakes, too.

Doug: You make wise mention repeatedly of the removal of car keys, etc. In addition to all the bars in your home, do you also have several guest beds, or just a cab company on retainer?
Dino: Yeah, I don’t like anyone leaving my house impaired and have actually gotten in fist fights over it with certain friends who have said, “give me the keys or we’re fighting.” And my reply? “Well, c’mon then. I guess we’re fighting.” Yeah. The extra beds get the occasional guest, but mostly it’s the couch. And (lol) no cab company on retainer…yet.

(See the LOL from the professional comedian? And you thought I wasn’t funny!)
Despite his cocktail cred-ruining affinity for vodka (With women, vodkas are like shoes: the more you have to choose from, in both color and style, the better your chances of making a sale.), and his disdain for gin, Dino has more hooch-fu than he’s willing to claim. He was a bartender for a brief period in his youth. Today he has four bars in his home, including a fully equipped Basement Bar, a main floor bar with fridge, a bar in his home office, and an outdoor backyard bar for when the weather allows you to be outside when thirsty. He mentions a fifth bar in the book, but it has since been, um, pruned by his lady fair.
25 Days of Christmas Cocktailing is an OK drinks book, but a damn fine read about drinks and drinking. It is selling pretty well this year via online sales only, so you may see it in bricks and mortar shops next holiday season, along with a possible Advent calendar for the drunkenly devout. Though it is too late for you to buy the book and do all twenty five drinks along with Dino, it isn’t too late to order a copy as a gift.
If you’d like to find out more about Dino, he’s on Facebook and Linked In, as well as on his radio station’s website.

This comes under the category of Bad Ideas From Science We Really Could Have Done Without, like weaponized anthrax, human cloning, and those little microphone headsets that let Madonna and Britney Spears perform. Russian scientists (who else?) have allegedly perfected a method for turning alcohol into a powder.
No. Just, no.
I just can’t stop thinking of ways for this product to be used for ill, and I haven’t really come up with a good use for it yet. Simply put, speed is the enemy of responsible alcohol use. Yes, the world already has shots, chugging, and the simple directive that “a cocktail should be drunk quickly, while it is still laughing”. But the idea that you could pop a couple of gelcaps and get drunk does not bear thinking on.
Now, be of good cheer. I don’t think that this is real.
First off, it comes from The Times of India (where I’ve encountered other less than credible articles), in an piece so badly written that I about pulled a muscle restraining myself from red-penning my own computer screen. The second and third paragraphs both have one or more sentences that repeat themselves verbatim.
Second, their source is “a web portal”, presumably from Russia. An unnamed Russian web portal? Dan Rather has higher standards of proof than that! Have you seen what passes for web journalism in Russia these days?
I unleashed my Google-fu on this. Why? Because I could.

You are drunk-blogging,
aren’t you?

No I am not.
Anyway, there is a St. Petersburg State Polytechnical University. On-line search function returns no faculty named Moskalev. There is a guy named Evgeny Moskalev from Russia who is on Facebook, who looks like the sort of joker who would perpetrate this sort of thing on the the poor Times of India, though.
For now, I’m going to file this threat to civilization under the heading of “Hoax”. Good on you Evgeny, if it is a hoax. and what the Hell have you done, if it isn’t.
By the way, I got this story from the HotAir Headlines, where AP finds this stuff for me, so I don’t have to, so that I can find it for you, so you don’t have to…

I’ve gotten a few good comments already, so more thoughts (and a layout-breaking video) below the fold… (more…)

Do not let your Ewoks drink on Halloween!

Watch to see why. And keep watching as it escalates. You don’t see quality, out-of-control morning television like this often!
(H/T: Dri)

UPDATE: Ahoy, ye marauding hordes from Mashable! There be lot o’ non-pirate drinkin’ an’ thinkin’ about these waters, so search fer some other treasure afore ye be leavin’!


Ahoy there, me fine fellow corsairs! It be International Talk Like a Pirate Day, or as we here on the good ship Buccaneer’s Strumpet like to say, International Drink Like a Pirate Day! Yarrrrr!
It be the time o’ year to celebrate the most entertainin’ internet meme of the all, arrrr!
What’s that, me proud beauty?
Yarrrr! Indeed, ITLaPD is the best o’ them all! Yes, even better than pictures of adorable little shark bait kitties with worse language skills than ours! Now get ready to drink up!

This year, on International Talk Like a Pirate Day, yer bonny Pegu Blog has scoured the Seven Seas for appropriate refreshment to drink on this day… and any other where ye be feelin’ piratical! And I, yer genial host Mad Morty Rackham, have rounded up three potent potables to pour down yer parched pirate piehole! A good pirate cocktail is just what this old sea dog needs after a long day o’ keelhaulin’, and plunderin’, and pillagin’.
Now, I’ve been bloggin’ up a storm, a gale, me hearties, over ITLaPD this week. I started with a shot across the bow, then I wrote about supplies ye need to be fillin’ yer hold with for this bonny day, and I also addressed how to be talkin’ like a pirate in the most important port of all, a bar! Arrrr!
But today, lay yer helm hard over, and set yer course fer these three ports o’ call, each ripe for plunderin’!

• Cap’n n’ Coke
• Navy Grog
• Bumbo

But before ye be headin’ off to swill some rhum, me buckos, it be time for a pirate song!

Avast! Now, where be that tavern wench? Ah there she be! Drink up, me buckos!

Although my focus on September 19th this year will be on renaming it International Drink Like a Pirate Day, for most folks it will be about the talking thing. And even for us pirate drinkers, it is important to get the voice down just so. So my post today is intended to get you all ready to, well, talk like a pirate.
I want to start with the basics of pirate talk, The Five A’s. This first video is from the leaders of the ITLaPD movement, Cap’n Slappy and Ol’ Chumbucket, the Pirate Guys.

These five words, Ahoy!, Avast!, Aye!, Aye-aye!, and Arrrr!, must include the exclamation point when written, in case you were wondering.
For a more advanced and modern method of learning pirate, the good folks at Rosetta Stone are working on a new product, but I’m afraid it may not yet be available commercially. Perhaps the Navy has bought all available copies for use in the Indian Ocean. At any rate, take a good look:

TalkLikeaPirate.com has much more advanced information for your piratin’ usage, including Pirate Pickup Lines (“Have ye ever met a man with a real yardarm?”), German, Swedish, and Mandarin pirate talk, and even a link to Internet Pirate Chat Acronyms (WWLJSPD-What would Long John Silver’s parrot do?).
In the interests of trying to add something original to the ITLaPD phenomenon, I here offer several lists of suggested pirate talk while pirate drinking.
For pirates in bars:

• “Ahoy, Barkeep! Ye be splashing me a flagon full o’ Cap’n Morgan’s best, and be smart about it!”
• Arrrr, it be Harry the Hook! (Ed note—Harry the Hook’s real name is probably Dwight or Skip) Lay along side, and let yer old friend buy ye a beer.
• Ahoy, me beauty! How can I find a map to your treasure?
• Avast, Bartender! How many doubloons be I owin’ ye?
  Arrrrr?!?
  Who’s been plunderin’ me tab?

For pirate lassies in bars:

• Avast Molly the Red and Bad Betty, me hearties! I be lovin’ this chanty the DJ be playin’! Let’s all go and dance the hornpipe together!
• Avast, ye lubber! Steer to the lee, afore I plug yer bunghole with me boot!
• Arrrr, me fellow pirate lasses. That bell be tellin’ me ’tis time to set sail together for the head!
• Avast, me likely Barman! I’ll be havin’ another Cosmogrogitan.
  Arrrr?
  Arrrr, just be puttin it on yon sailor’s tab. He be buyin’ me grog this night!

And finally, for the tavern keeper, or his serving wenches:

• Ahoy, Cap’n. What manner of grog be ye wantin’ to wash the taste o’ the sea from yer bilge?
• Arrrr! ‘Tis a sad, sad sea tale ye just told, me pirate friend. What canna ye be wantin’ to drown yer sorrows?
• Aye aye, Horrible Harry, Terror of the Lake Erie Main. One Appletini comin’ yer way smartly!
• Avast, ye scurvy land lubber! Where be me doubloons for all yer pirate lagers? Ware, lest I take me belaying pin to yer noggin!

There’s much more video assistance with general pirate talk, but in the interests of not slowing down my main page load, I’ll jam it under the fold. Otherwise, be sure to be steerin’ yer way back to these waters on September 19th its own self. There’ll be lots of recipes to whet yer pirate whistle!
(more…)

Because I haven’t posted anything silly enough to undermine my credibility as a cocktail blogger in a few days, I bring you this little drinking gamelette from The Correctness:

Whenever someone at your table orders a Shirley Temple, you should immediately follow it up with “Of DOOM!!!!”.

I’ll invite you to follow the link to see the drink they find particularly pleasing to use this on.

We’ll have shots of tequila…

… Of DOOM!

What you got?

This time I’m picking on the wine snobs out there, rather than one of our own.

Just another reminder that no matter how pretentious we get around here, we’ll never make to the big leagues….

Thanks to Mætenloch, guest posting at Ace of Spades: