Four Northwestern football games remain, which means you only have four more mildly plausible excuses to start drinking at nine in the morning on Saturday. Maximize that with themed drinks, based on the school that the 'Cats are about to (hopefully) demolish.
Penn State
It’s parent’s weekend, and you want to make sure mom and dad still think you’re mature. So, while all your friends are off tailgating with 30 racks of Cheap Beer Light, at your grill, you pull out a smooth, stained oak case. Inside? An 80 dollar bottle of single malt scotch whisky and three fancy looking glasses. Not the cheap stuff this time, not for Greg and Sara (I literally googled “suburban parents” to find that picture, and I bet you find it eerily familiar, don’t you?).
But seriously, once in a while it can be nice to invest in a quality product that provides you with a quality experience, if you have the resources. Expensive whiskey is a great way to get there, and single malt scotch especially as it doesn’t overwhelm our cheap palettes with fancy flavors we can’t taste.
Single malt scotch is soft and mellow. It’s made only with barley and it’s aged in barrels that have previously been used so you don’t have to worry about any harshness. You can, and will, pour this into a glass and drink it straight. When it’s near 45 degrees this Saturday and mom is shivering outside of Ryan Field, this will warm her up. It will also hopefully stop her from nagging about grades and why you haven’t been on a date in three months.
Pro-tip: only after the bottle is empty and everyone is having a blast let it drop that your parents were the ones that actually fit the $80 bill.
Purdue Boilermakers
It has been said that cannibals eat their enemies to show ownership and power over them. “Watch as your body nourishes me!” is the general idea. We shall use this technique to show power over the Boilermakers, but with a beer and whiskey boilermaker, and none of the flesh consumption.
Boilermakers sound easy to make: dump a shot of whiskey into any volume of beer. But it’s one thing to haphazardly mix alcohol, and another to make something drinkable. I could make a paper airplane, and it’s technically an airplane, but no one would buy tickets to ride it.
First off, the beer is the base (mellow, malty), the whiskey the real flavor. Second, no sweet beer (so belgians are out). Third, if you just wanna get blasted, ignore these rules, we all know taste doesn’t matter to you.
A good example would be Bell’s Two Hearted and rye whiskey. Two Hearted is mellow and bitter, and rye whisky is peppery, so you get a nice kick to an easy drinking beer. A bad example would be Guinness and bourbon, Guinness is pretty watery and bourbon is smack full of flavor, so you would get some bourbon-tasting dark oat water.
Wisconsin
What comes to mind when you think of Wisconsin? Crippling alcohol issues, yes, of course. But also cows. Cows make milk, and mixing milk and coffee and vodka will make you happy. White Russians are the way to go.
This one is easy. Add five parts vodka to three parts coffee liqueur and two parts milk. You could probably find fancy, local milk to make it upscale, and you can add actual coffee to the mix to keep you pepped up for the game.
If you’re lactose intolerant, good news! Madison has a great selection of breweries, and you can join in on the Wisconsin ritual of inhaling beer before football games!
Illinois
The majority of Illinois is a wasteland of corn and soybeans, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaigne is smack in the middle of this agricultural desert. Because soybeans and “drinking” generally never go together (unless you’re at Whole Foods looking at that expensive soy milk), we’re back to whiskey again. This time: corn white lightning.
Since we’re Northwestern and do lots of fancy and cultural stuff, we’re gonna bring some of that culture down to Farmville in the form of corn whiskey negronis. Sure it’s an apéritif, but they won’t know that.
You’ll need to bring along some of globally-renowned Few white whiskey (or something else from Chicago like Koval to show our urban superiority), Campari and sweet vermouth. Now, mix one part of each into a large container and serve.
Finally, engage anyone wearing the color orange in an overly pretentious conversation. Use words like “neoliberalism” or something Freud said.