Last night, the “Historical Oracle,” David Wondrich visited Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report and performed his typical rat-a-tat-a-tat shaking style, discussed Prohibition-era cocktails, how to strain drinks through one’s beard, and how to get Stephen Colbert to sex you up all night. The key, Cherry Heering.

Wondrich appeared, in part, to promote his book Imbibe!: From Absinthe Cocktail to Whiskey Smash which you should buy, post-haste.

Colbert Bump

• 1.5oz Gin
• 1oz Cherry Heering
• .25oz fresh lemon juice
• Heavy splash of soda

Fill a tall glass with ice and build. Stir and serve.

This post carries a warning: watch what you say. You never know who may be listening, much less recording. And, if you’re a college professor, you might as well assume the latter at all times. This is a verbatim transcript of a section of a Biochemistry course in which an instructor, perhaps unwisely, decided to expound on what may cause the difference between a person being a “sad” drunk versus a “happy” drunk and manages to divulge some interesting personal details, a recipe for “Hopping Gators”, and thoughts on spousal shootings in the process.

Is there Biochemistry involved? Yes. Is it the most appropriate topic, or approach, in a college classroom? Well, you decide.

I think one of the more interesting things is why you get happy drunks and sad drunks. Right? You guys read this chapter? I should give you a quiz so you’ll read it.

If you’re exercising a lot, real strenuously, you sort of wear out your glycogen reserves and you sort of get in a hungry stage, and if you go out drinking with your buddies, right, you get a bigger bang for your buck . Right? And depending on how well fed you [are or] not, you can, you can, get sort of, as we say here, uh, agitated? Impaired judgment? Shall we say? And why does that happen?

Well it happens because when you drink, you have to uh, remove the alcohol, and you remove the alcohol by alcohol dehydrogenase and acid aldehyde dehydrogenase. This creates higher levels of NADH in the cytosol. And so you’re not really getting a lot on energy, per say, at that point in time. And then those higher levels of NADH cause a shift of pyruvate to lactate, and it also causes oxaloacetate to malate shift. These are the precursors of glucose from the liver.

So, you know, if you’re exercising, and you go drinking, you get, you get a little, little wilder, you know. Have you ever tried Gatorade and beer? Hopping gators? Get drunk on that? It used to be popular when I was in college. Well, well, Gatorade and anything , because the the the carbonate and the glucose gives you [I couldn't really hear this part, something about the carbonate and the glucose and an enhanced uptake, and screwing something.]

Anyway, so, so you end up, uh, um, screwing up your glucose levels and just like any war usually starts when people are hungry . Or fights start when people are hungry . Or if you look at the Saturday night shootings of spouses, you know, it all happens after alcohol . So, vitamin B’s play a role in this. I’m going to ask you some roles for thiamine and, and uh, pyridoxine and some of this stuff. You know, beer has a lot of B vitamins, but, but typically if you’re drinking a light American beer in, into excess, you’ll go into a vitamin B deficiency.

So. If you want to be happy and drunk, you should drink and eat, like Europeans do and have lots of B vitamins. And don’t drink – don’t go out, like, at midnight and and drink like a fish, and not expect to have the consequences .

So, to make sure we understand the drinking rules according to Professor Bombast, the promised quiz:

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* Please note that my views on alcohol consumption are in no way linked to the professor quoted above and that I believe moderation, safety of one’s self, and the safety of others are always of primary importance and that this is not meant to glorify or encourage overconsumption in any way. I’m not sure how you might get that impression, but someone surely will, so, if that’s you, go back and re-read this several times until it sticks.

I’m sure the employees give get great french benefits.

I throw quite a few shindigs and I like to think I bring together the right type and range of people that will generally enjoy one another deeply for an evening and yet not become such close friends that, after some time, they abandon….me. A few years ago I held a New Year’s Eve Party and a lot of old friends that had moved to, and remain in, California were visiting Tulsa and were invited. I was very excited to see them and wanted things to go off well. I also invited local friends and family which, necessarily, includes my brother-in-law. Unfortunately for me, specifically, and the party, generally, my brother-in-law’s girlfriend at the time also had an out-of-town friend visiting and asked, sheepishly, if I minded if they brought this friend along. Well, why not, right?

Why not, indeed. While this was before my more enlightened drinking days I still liked to put a good spread of alcohol and this begat ‘The Shittiest Toilet in Scotland’. A drink born of woe, ignorance, and boorishness. All of the below is true. I leave you to it: Read More »

Those 8 of you that were actually awaiting the results of the contest, there is a winner; I’ve just been too taken up with Real Life (RL©) and spewing clean-outs in my basement coating everything within in rotten detritus and funk to get to much of anything blog-related done recently. The basic run-down however is that the entries fell into three categories:

• Cocktail mixers being used in nefarious and inappropriate ways,
• Cocktail mixers being just plain awful, and
• Using mixing ingredients as substitutes when they really ought not be.

Let’s take an example from each , the first being:

As you probably know, there was a catastrophic ice storm in the Oklahoma area in early December that knocked power out for a huge percentage of the population during sub-zero temperatures. As one would expect, trying to prepare, serve, and drink quality drinks in the dark is a heady challenge that makes one appreciate ice makers, lights, and neat Scotch (in just about that order – and I love me some good Scotch). So, in the midst of 8 days without electricity and spending it with the in-laws (as Casa de Cocktailnerd was hovering around 40 degrees) I was called upon, in the daunting face of such dire ice-less and candle-lit circumstances, to mix drinks. Here’s what I learned: Read More »

This, from my son’s homework he got back from school: Read More »

I’ll soon post a follow-up on how our cocktail event went, and more specifically, how the drinks were received and my learnings from the evening, but for your present amusement I submit this:

Some of you may have seen this in the latest issue of Imbibe, as I did, and may have had a similar reaction, ‘WTfF?!’. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the scent of a good bourbon as much as the next red-blooded male, but wow, a cologne? ‘But officer, I needed a ‘pick-me-up’!’. ‘Yeah son, get your hands on the car…’

Not to mention the fact that among the DUI, *ahem* I mean ‘Happy Hour’, family of fragrances is:

• Sex on the Beach
• Mojito
• Black Russian
• Cocktail Party to Go
• Martini
• Cosmopolitan
• Pina Colada
• Champagne Brut Read More »

I was talking to a classmate of mine in college, in class mind you, and the subject of Dungeons and Dragons came up as I saw him pull several hardback monster manuals, DM guides, and other tomes from his bag (2nd ed. rules since I know you’re wondering). Now, I’m far from prudish but it wasn’t but five minutes into the conversation when he asked, conspiratorially, whether or not I’d ever played using the ‘Carnal Guide‘ additional rules. Ahem, no, I haven’t… and I’ve never needed a book for that sort of thing since I was 13… it really sorta comes naturally at some point. Not to mention that this was not a person I wanted to visualize, imagine, or come within 3 blocks of anything remotely involving anything even somewhat carnal. Seriously. So, while performing some research for an event I’m bartending later this week (more on this later), I ran into this, a similarly minded set of additional rules regarding drinking in the D&D universe. 

Now, being who I am and doing what I do I appreciate the sort of effort and thinking process this sort of thing would involve. Hell, I wouldn’t mind helping out with deciding how the roll tables for negative character effects should be laid out and stratified, ‘Oh, bugger off, I am NOT at a 2d6+10 yet! Just, go to hell you… you… nurf…’ *whump*. And, voila, the ‘Hammered’ drunkenness roll would be born. So, for your further amusement, cheers… and try not to head into the ’save vs. poison’ territory (brilliant, that). Read More »

 I mean, what, is it a Saturday morning what with Joe’s wife’s curlers in her hair? And I don’t know, he looks and sounds pretty happy to see her, why the fear? Roll with it, hon.

There are so many things wrong here; the doorknob has been installed backwards by today’s standards (certainly while Joe was on a bender after being burgled), Joe’s son needs a frickin’ haircut and possibly an eyebrow waxing, and Joe seems to have a tendency to carry glassware around indiscriminately. However, Joe’s car is bitchin’; I’m just sayin’.