drunk – awkward vodka

How to Drink like a 21-Year-Old

A combination of my sister turning 21 and the fact that it’s summer, which means it’s always time for excessive drinking, have added up to making me act like a 21-year-old one too many times in the past couple weeks. Therefore, I have mastered how to drink like a 21-year-old:

Step #1: Be sure to have a variety of different alcohols to drink throughout the night. Pick up some cider, beer and wine. Don’t worry, we’ll get to the hard stuff later…

Step #2: Chug something before going out to the bars. Chug Anything. I usually choose something inappropriate like red wine. Bonus points if it spills all over you.

Step #3: After drinking all your beer & wine, it’s obviously time to go out in public and drink hard liquor. By this time, you’ll probably be stumbling around like a complete idiot.

Step #4: Once you’re drunk and should probably stop drinking, don’t. Start buying shots. Buy them for everyone. You don’t have any money in your bank account? Who cares!

Step #5: Dance. Dance anywhere whether or not it has a dance floor. And don’t stop dancing until 2 a.m. unless it’s to take shots.

Step #6: Find something delicious to eat like Mickey D’s or T. Bell and eat WAAAAY too much of it.

Step #7: Pass out.

Ugh. What a mess.

Seriously… don’t do this.

Best Hangover Foods

Nothing cures a hangover like some delicious grub. Here’s our list of the best foods to cure a hangover:

Bagels: there really isn’t anything better than carb-loading after a night of booze-loading.

BLT and Chili (from Uptown Diner in Minneapolis): there’s nothing I crave more than a nice soup and sandwich when I’m hungover.

Cold Pizza: the happiest feeling in the world is finding pizza in the fridge when you wake up barely able to function. Microwaving is not required.

BBQ Kettle Chips: let’s be honest. I could put away a full bag of these while sober and not hungover.

Pasta: With sauce. Without sauce. Cold. Warm. Doesn’t really matter. Any type of pasta will rid you of a hangover in no time. Note: the best type of pasta is creamy mac ‘n cheese.

McDonalds Hash Browns: they could make a fortune by selling these 24 hours a day.

Subway 6 in. Roasted Chicken Breast Sandwich on White Bread with Lettuce, Pickles, Salt and Pepper: I know it’s random, but try it. I promise you won’t be disappointed. Maybe add mayo if you like mayo? I don’t.

Egg Sandwiches: yum.

Crackers: when you can’t stomach any real food, chose plain crackers.

Bloody Mary: could be considered food depending on where you order it. The more extras the better.

Agree? Disagree? What do you snack on when you need to cure a hangover real fast?

Things I’ve Sacraficed for a Good Drink

1. My Pride: Buying a small, juice box-shaped box of wine and bringing it into Whole Foods while I eat my pay-by-weight salad bar is not above me.

2. Mascara: My eye lashes may be a bit less bold for a few days, but it’s worth it to grab a vodka drink after a long day at work.

3. Exercise: This goes without saying. I can’t even count the amount of times I’ve chosen happy hour before a good workout. It’s BS when people saying they’re in better shape in the summer than winter. People who chose hitting the gym or going for a run instead of drinking outside for 5 hours after work have more will power than I do.

4. My Health: Have you ever been like almost-sick and you know that all you need it one night of good sleep and you’ll be healthy? But you totally ignore this and go drink anyways because your best friends are going to be going out without you and you don’t want to miss being in all the fun instagram pics and getting badges for checking-in together 10 times in one night…

5. Groceries: Don’t have enough money to buy groceries, but of course I have enough money to pay for five $5 Vodka Diets on a Wednesday evening.

6. Sober Plans: Sorry we had plans to go to a movie. Someone else invited me to get drinks.

7. A Savings Account: Ek – what’s more important? Planning for the future or drinking now? Mm…

8. Sleep: Even if I have to wake up to workout, go to work, drive 4 hours or go shopping with friends, I’ll still talk myself into going out for a drink or two which always turns into 8 or 10. So what if I only get a couple hours of “sleep”?

9. My Apartment: Clothes are thrown everywhere, laundry half done, dishes piled up in the sink. And it stays this way for days at a time because – now that the weather is nice – happy hour is much more appealing than going home and cleaning.

Confession time. What have you sacrificed for a delicious alcoholic beverage?

Wine Country Vaca

If you’ve never been to northern California, plan a trip now. I was there last weekend for my cousin’s wedding in Napa, and it was a weekend full of delicious food, family time and an excessive amount of wine. Here’s my little weekend recap:

Friday

We arrived in San Fran around noon so we were able to check into our hotel and explore most of the afternoon. My mom, Aunt and I had delicious seafood at a restaurant at the Warf, while my dad and BF opted for In and Out Burger. Although I love burgers, I was naive on the first day of vaca and believed I could survive the weekend without over eating so I skipped In and Out. But don’t worry, it was eaten later in the weekend at about 1:00 a.m. after gulping down gallons of wine.

Friday Highlight: Going to The Buena Vista Cafe and drinking Irish Coffees. Irish coffees have like cream, coffee and whiskey in them – I think. Delicious! This is a must-go if you ever go to San Fran.

Saturday

In the morning, we took a long walk to my cousin’s apartment – about 2.5 miles away – through Little Italy. It was a nice walk, cool outside. Lots of hills. We had a delicious breakfast at a cafe in Little Italy – yum! Saturday afternoon we headed to Napa for the first time for wine tasting and a welcome dinner for my cousin’s wedding. It was so great checking out some fun vineyards and catching up with family I haven’t seen in years.

Saturday Highlight: We were driving through Napa, taking in the gorgeous sites and trying to decide on which vineyard we wanted to check out. We started driving past the Menage a Trois vineyard and my mom pulled a U-turn faster than I’ve ever seen anyone turn around. It’s one of her fave wines in Wisconsin, so she had to go to a wine tasting of it in Napa. Weird, right? So we paid $5 to taste a tiny sample of three wines when a bottle usually costs about $5 in Wisco…

Sunday

On Sunday we woke up full of regret after binge eating In and Out burger on Saturday night, so our walk was extra long in the morning. Once recovered from the night before, we got dolled up for my cousin’s wedding and headed back to Napa. On the way to the wedding we obviously stopped at two vineyards because, well, why not? We then made our way to Yountville for the wedding.

Sunday Highlight: Obviously my cousin’s wedding. It was gorgeous and so much fun. She looked amazing and the whole wedding was beautiful. Kristine & Mark, my cousin and her new husband, met in San Francisco so there was a lot of sentimental value in getting married at a vineyard there. The night was full of dancing, drinking, taking shots of Grey Goose – or GG 😉 – for my other cousin’s 21st birthday and playing with the fancy electronic bathrooms.

Monday

Monday was rough. We attempted to go for a walk, but ended up eating a huge breakfast at the Hollywood Cafe instead. We then spent the day biking around San Francisco, over the Golden Gate Bridge and in Sausalito. At night we had another huge meal at the Warf and my aunt and I shared a huge, unnecessary fishbowl full of liquor.

Monday Highlight: Biking over the Golden Gate Bridge was amazing! I got a horrible sunburn, but it was totally worth it. The view is amazing. It took us about 3 hours to make the trek across the bridge to Sausalito, but it flew by. The only bad part was making it up the hills – so many hills. But we were rewarded with fish tacos and yummy Sangria in Sausalito.

The whole trip was awesome. I’m a little bit in love with northern California right now and need to go back. If you ever get a chance, go!

“The iPod Game”

I love drinking games. Well I love games in general, so turning non-drinking games into drinking games is a favorite past time of mine.

If you’re looking for a chill night out, don’t play this game. It’s been known to cause people to pass out, pants-less, before 10 p.m. (you’re welcome, you-know-who).

iPod Game Rules

Turn your iPod on shuffle. This works best with an iPod full of random music – lots of different genres.

Once your iPod is ready, the first person makes a rule. Here are some examples:

If the next song is sang by a girl, all the girls take a drink
If the next song is country music, everyone who likes country has to take a drink
If you know all the words to the next song, give out a drink
If you danced to the next song at a high school dance, take a drink
If the next song has a word in a foreign language in the title, everyone who has been out of the country, take a drink
If you’ve seen the next band live, take a drink

Now, these are all fun and great, but when you drink a little too much, you start making rules like this:

If the next song has words, [Call-Out Individual Friend] takes a shot
If the next band has ever sang live, everyone takes shots

As you can see, this game will start a drunk fast. I warn you – if you want all your friends to make it out, don’t play this game. However, if you’re looking for a fun, drunk time, play on!

If you’re competitive and need to know who’s the winner, play this game. It’ll be fairly obvious at the end who is the winner and who loses.

*Also works with iTunes on a computer if you trust your computer around your drunk friends.

Mixology Test #2: Skinny Margs

Yes. This post is about tequila and not vodka, but every liquor-drinking lady loves herself some tequila on a crazy Friday night – or low-key Saturday afternoon…

Like we’ve said before, when you drink as much as we do, you have to be careful about your calorie intake. Unfortunately for us, margaritas are one of the worst drinks for you. There are a variety of different types of low-cal margs out there, but who wants to pay $20 for a tiny bottle of low-cal margs when you could just make them yourself? (Not to mention, you’ll have tequila left over for shots!)

We made our skinny margs with tequila, club soda and lime juice…

1 part tequila
2 parts club soda
1/3 part lime juice

This tastes just like a margarita! I was pleasantly surprised, mostly because I know tequila tastes disgusting with my old stand-by Diet Coke – yup, I’ve tried it.

Note: Turns out a whole shot of lime juice is disgusting. Don’t put a whole shot in your drink because you’ll definitely be wasting tequila.

“I LOVE TEQUILA” – Ray Ray