Ghetto Drinks
After reading the article about the boxed wine revolution on the main page of Serious Eats, I started thinking about "ghetto" drinks and how popular they are with people my age.
I don't drink often, but when I do- watch out. My drinking has been referred to as "ghetto" on more than one occasion. My best friend and I buy pints of whiskey, sit in the parking lot of a bar and take shots out of the bottle so that we don't end up blowing our checking accounts once at the bar, which always charges too much. I've never walked into a bar sober.
Another friend of mine drinks Mad Dog 20/20, also referred to as "bum wine" and yet another friend mixes beer and liquor in the same cup and chugs it. I know too many girls who favor wine coolers and Boone's Farm, which is so watered down and sick I have no idea how they stomach it.
I'm sure all of you are more refined then my friends and I, but I thought I'd ask:
Do you favor any "ghetto" drinks? And vile, overly sweet novelty drinks like "fuzzy nipples" count!
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34 Comments:
Ew..no.
In my much younger days we did the Boone's and cheap beers and such as it fit the budget and the sheer amount we drank. We also never hit the bars/clubs without a few first, to save money and drinking vs. dancing time.
Now that I am older, I stick to slightly higher quality stuff, and cannot drink the sweet stuff at ALL. No froufy mixed drinks or sweet wines for me. Even a margarita has to be sharp and not sugary. (Part of why I prefer rocks to frozen) I love to cook with liqueurs, but not really drink them.
Even my drink of choice, whiskey, has to be one that I cannot detect too much sweetness in, and wines have to taste like I am licking the barrel they were stored in, dry dry dry.
I prefer my liquor straight now, not mixed, and can only handle a sweeter drink now and again, usually when offered one at a gathering where there aren't many options and I feel the need to be polite (or just desperately need a drink because of said gathering) :)
Though I can say, that at a party, I would rather have a glass of cheap but honest jug wine, or bottom shelf liquor, than be faced with pitchers of the "in" and foul cosmos and flavored martinis and other candy-tasting ick.
sadiepix at 3:56AM on 08/10/08
Mad Dog 20/20
--------------------
I haven't heard that name in a long time.
Oh Lord, flashbacks of being a youngster again, and getting sick.
Make it stop...
FastFoodCritic at 9:03AM on 08/10/08
OMG ~ Mad Dog 20/20! My other favorite reference is Colt 45, but inly if it is in a paper bag! Honestly though, I have never had either or even considered it. My was a Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill chick back in the day. :-O
izatryt at 9:48AM on 08/10/08
I'm with sadiepix--this makes me sound super-lame, but other than sips from other's drinks, I didn't really start drinking at all until I was 23, and so never developed a taste for er, more youthful beverages. I can't stomach sweet wine and the only time I drank gin and tonics or screwdrivers (and then only one a night) was when I was in England, amongst a set of friends who were very fun and bright and drank like fishes. It was fun, but not something I'd choose to do again.
Why are sweet alcoholic drinks called 'ghetto' ie marketed at a lower socioeconomic bracket? I can understand why kids like Jell-O shots and such, since they don't like alcohol, really, just like getting silly and finding an excuse to hook up.
HeartofGlass at 10:20AM on 08/10/08
This summer I've become addicted to Mike Hard Lemonade - the cranberry version....I suppose that could be called ghetto...it is pretty sweet & sugary....but it tastes so good ice cold on a hot day!
I've become known for my jello shots too....made some on a recent camping trip....they were as much a hit amongst the older set as the younger set....the old folks thought it was a great way to enjoy a shot w/o the strength of straight booze...I have to make even more next summer! lol
mepolo at 10:48AM on 08/10/08
I'll fess up to this (the drink itself is not ghetto but the behavior kinda is) - there's a music venue in Manhattan that I LOVE, but they charge $8-9 for mixed drinks and they're always really weak, so basically two drinks are the equivalent of one, which means you end up paying almost $20 for one drink. Rather than spending tons of money on their weak drinks, I just bring a bit of flavored Stoli vodka (blackberry is great!) in one of those tiny Poland Spring bottles, order some club soda, and make my own drinks. I know, totally ghetto, but whatever. It's cost-effective. That's how I rationalize it!
charm city cupcake at 12:02PM on 08/10/08
Franzia Sunset Blush ... I know, I know, it's wine in a box, but I'm a poor student!
poke87 at 12:07PM on 08/10/08
I'm in the same boat as Poke - poor students drink ghetto without shame.
I actually learned to drink (cheap) red wine mixed with Coke in Spain. It's called a calimocho, and it's far better than it sounds.
unarata at 12:54PM on 08/10/08
I don't understand--what does "ghetto" mean? Is it a euphemism for for poor and/or black?
Tokyorosa at 1:22PM on 08/10/08
I bring a 6 pack of a random flavor of Smirnoff Twister to "girly" parties where I'd be the only beer drinker...
ansate at 1:55PM on 08/10/08
Does 3-buck chuck (the red kind) mixed with diet Moutain Dew count?? Much better than it sounds! Sangria-like. Sometimes I even pour a shot of (cheap) brandy in it!
CheesePlease at 2:23PM on 08/10/08
@ Tokyorosa and HeartofGlass: The term "ghetto" in this sense refers to cheap drinks, not sweet drinks or being poor/black. Well, I guess it kinda references being poor because the people I know who drink like this are like me (just got done being a student and work at a job that doesn't pay nearly enough to eat/drink the good stuff all the time). Bringing in your own vodka and mixing it with soda (ala charmcitycupcake) is a ghetto drink. Mikes Hard is not necessarily ghetto. The wine brand Andre is pretty ghetto.
pbisNOTmyname at 3:20PM on 08/10/08
When I was a youngster we drank the cheapest drink of them all - a little bit off the top of each of your parents bottles, all mixed together in a handy portable container. Usually this was drunk on the city bus on the way to a high school dance...
PeanutButter at 4:15PM on 08/10/08
Tokyorosa, no, "ghetto" is in no way a euphamism for poor and/or black. It makes me sad that you would think that. "Ghetto" as in cost effective and pretty nasty. I sit with a pint of Crown Royal between my legs and a can of Dr. Pepper in my hand in bar parking lots. I'm a master at this kind of thing.
PumpkinBear at 5:40PM on 08/10/08
Pumpkin- you're hilarious, thanks for creating a NOT so Serious Eats thread and a definite anti oenophile thread.
I'm 23, so i know what you're talking about, and i love good french wine from living in Paris and I love my dirty martinis but I definitely hop on the subway with a plastic bottle filled with soda water and Beefeater, JTS Brown, or Ginger ale and Absolut.
Gross, but a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do.
JacquelineS at 6:15PM on 08/10/08
I do like really good drinks but I gotta say that sometimes I just can't spend the money or am not in for the thinking that goes into better drinks. When I want to be thrifty I turn to Schlitz/Pabst/High Life tall cans or a 40oz. Mickeys malt liquor. Sometimes a glass of very simple red wine,lightly chilled, reminds me that I need to just relax and enjoy life without over-thinking it.
coolname at 6:50PM on 08/10/08
I'm not sure how ghetto it is, but in my late teens - early twenties, I used to fancy those pre-mixed gin & tonic drinks in a can (like a Coke can) - they were cheap and convenient (and available at my local Sainsbury's, if I remember correctly). Just the other day I asked my Other Half if they ever had these drinks in the States (I think you could also buy cans of Rum & Coke and something else - vodka and something? But I only ever had gin & tonic), and he was (retroactively:)) so jealous! So apparently, it was just a European thing.
brooke29 at 7:48PM on 08/10/08
the cheapest thing I remember drinking in college was Cisco, anyone remember that?
It was referred to as "liquid crack" back in the day. It tasted like flavored jet fuel with an antifreeze chaser not that I've tasted jet fuel or antifreeze, but it's how I imagine it tastes.
Imagine a wine cooler that is about 20% alcohol.
It was better to drink it on a Friday night, cause you needed all weekend to recover from it. I seem to recall nudity and that "I'm a badass" feeling too.
ah, good times, good times.
Southern_bella at 9:19PM on 08/10/08
oh, oh, oh.
back when i was drinking underage, i was pretty much the king of ghetto-drunken-ness.
let's see...my friend lived in a trailer park full of drunks and druggies, so of course the gas station just outside was well stocked, and staffed by drunks who didn't ID...so we have cheap beer(colt 45, natty light, 211, etc), and of course the requisite cheap-ass wines--Boone's Farm and Wild Irish Rose.
So the other thing was the ABC(Alabama is the only state that only sells hard liquor in state-run liquor stores, theoretically to prevent exactly what i'm describing happening) just in front of the trailer park, similarly stocked by drunks and miscreants who just didn't give a damn, and would sell to anyone. this should've been our gateway to drunken adventure and excitement, but we were broke, so generally it was Aristocrat Vodka or Gin, and horrible shit-water bourbon like Evan Williams or Old Forrester.
man, this seriously brings back memories...
And of course if i wasn't in trailer-park-friend's place, it would be the house of a friend who lived about a mile away, and was similarly situated closely to a ghetto-gas station, and had neighbors who were very liberal about buying and sharing booze; this led to slightly better drinking; jack daniels and seagram's, but still nothing to talk of in public(if you have any dignity, at least).
Generally speaking this was taken straight, although mixers were not unheard of--Gin and Juice, Jack and coke...vodka and kool-aid(don't ask, please).
rasellers0 at 9:31PM on 08/10/08
Rasellers0: I know EXACTLY what you mean about ABC Liquor Stores! My boyfriend is from Alabama and when we go there for a visit we always stop at an ABC Liquor store. We're both in our early to mid twenties, but we look like teenagers. I actually have a little girl voice and I'm five foot two. So we walk in there and grab about 80 bucks of liquor one night and the women who worked there were too busy talking about macaroni and cheese recipes to even card. One of them looked me up and down, but just let us walk out with our massive bag of liquor goodness.
You reminded me of so many horrendous underage drinking stories. The first time I ever got drunk I was a teenager and my best friend and I chose to do it with a combination of tequila and Kool Aid.
In high school it was all about screwdrivers made with that absolutely horrible vodka called Popov. Anyone know what I'm talking about? It came in plastic bottles, it was dirt cheap and it tasted so incredibly gross. Like all cheap liquor though, it got the job done.
PumpkinBear at 11:06PM on 08/10/08
@ rasellers0 - Pennsylvania is another state where all hard liquor must be purchased at state-run stores. Beer comes from beer distributors. Depending on alcohol content, wine coolers are sold at one or the other. No alcohol is sold at grocery or convenience stores. All take checking ID very seriously. You can burn a lot of gas stocking up on liquor for a party. That being said, in college, the old adage "Beer is fine, but licker is quicker" held up. Grain alcohol punch was the standard frat party beverage. Even mixed with some gawd-awful sweet mixer like Kool-Aid or Hawaiian punch, it still tasted like licking the inside of a rubbing alcohol bottle. Each evening ended with us all paying worship to the porcelain god. How ghetto can you get :P
Josdean at 11:22PM on 08/10/08
The nastiest I ever drank was Tolstoy vodka, available at the off-licenses that sold after 11pm in London. We would always be drunk before getting to the Tolstoy (distilled in Liverpool), but even then, the second it made contact with your mouth, the tendons in your neck would rip out of your body and slap you in the face.
Oh yes, and Tennent's extra strong lager. The hardest part was getting through the first can, because it was so nasty, but once you got the first one down, you'd be drunk enough to get through a couple more.
renzata at 12:05AM on 08/11/08
@PumpkinBear - Popov... *shudder* as equally vile as Gordon's brand.
ugh
Southern_bella at 9:57AM on 08/11/08
About 10-15 years ago, Ohio switched from state-run liquor stores to retailers being permitted to obtain package sales licenses.
Some of these stories make me laugh...flashbacks! I think my worst time was in the first couple of years after I was divorced. My friend and I would buy 4-5 bottles of Strawberry Hill - hey - $3 a bottle was a great deal!
Tasted like kool-aid going down, came up like raw sewage every freakin' time!
And, as much as I prefer craft beers and ales, and my really good liquor...there is always a 6-pack of either Miller Lite or MGD 64 in the fridge and I'm known to pick up Burnett's vodka and/or gin for average everyday cocktails. I got turned on to it when I was working in Mississippi - the liquor store owner guaranteed it with a "bring the rest back tomorrow and I'll replace it with the name brand". At the price, living on the road with a $12 per diem made my "hotel cocktails" much more attainable.
thewrighttaste at 10:27AM on 08/11/08
ugh...Im getting a wicked hangover just reading these...
late teen years included;
Milwaukee's best (aka The Beast)
Jack Daniels coolers...especially the pink kind..oh soooo girly
Plastic Jug vodka and pretty much anything sweet....lemonade, sprite, gatorade
BUT..the "most ghetto drink I've ever consumed' award goes to...
'lemon drop shooters'...made with aforementioned plastic bottle vodka, lemon juice from a plastic lemon and sweet n low.
*shudder
hammondcheese at 11:18AM on 08/11/08
@hammondcheese- I had some pretty cheap guy friends in college, they'd get kegs of Beast Light for like $25 for their parties. YIPE!
Southern_bella at 11:30AM on 08/11/08
@ Southernbella...HA..me too! I remember the local gas station would have WALLS built with all the cases of Beast, Beast Lite, and our fav...BEAST ICE!!!
awesome!
hammondcheese at 11:47AM on 08/11/08
Beast Ice? yikes! The Beast hasn't touched these lips since college.
Southern_bella at 11:54AM on 08/11/08
While in college all of the above, the Beast, Keystone, whatever malt liquor was on sale, MD 20/20. These days when I can afford it I'm a beer snob...but I'll drink whatever your serving.
bobbob at 12:20PM on 08/11/08
Forgot to mention the cheap beer of choice at the time, Fort Pitt. It became known as Fort Pitt, that shit??? Shortly thereafter, it went belly-up:(
Josdean at 3:45PM on 08/11/08
i too was a huge calimocho drinker when i lived in spain. coke and red wine sounds gross but it's really not bad!
we drank any and everything we could get our hands on when we were underage. chugging warm kahlua outside of a high school dance was not one of my favorite moments.
jungle juice is pretty awful too -- grain alcohol in a tub with juice basically. ugh.
megannesta at 4:03PM on 08/11/08
I used to be all about the ghetto drinks, but with time I have found myself a lot more like sadiepix and HeartofGlass. If I'm going to drink it, I want it to be good.
If I were to make a Venn diagram illustrating the set of things that are "ghetto drinks" and the set of things that are "truly good drinks," I'm afraid the intersection would be sparsely populated. :(
That being said, the most truly wonderful Jello shot you can make is with sugar free lime Jello and tequila. Tastes like a margarita if you do it right (and it's not too sweet and gross if you use the sugar free stuff).
dbrackst at 5:27PM on 08/11/08
Early in college, my girlfriends and I would mix cheap plastic-bottle vodka with gatorade as our pre-party cocktail (not realizing at the time that the electrolytes were speeding the booze into our systems....) Tried it a couple of months ago for "old times sake," not a single one of us could keep it down. O, the glory days of youth......
nichole at 6:43PM on 08/11/08
I think it's sad that ghetto drinks & drinking stories has more comments than just about any other tagline I've seen. Yeah, that Popov stuff was nasty. Good times.
Brupie at 1:47PM on 08/14/08