Ask drinkplanner manly shots

Ask DrinkPlanner is a reoccurring feature here where readers submit their questions, and the crack team at DrinkPlanner does our best to answer. Got a question about booze? Ask us!

The manly drinking theme continues! A reader wonders…

“DrinkPlanner,

What are some manly shots I can order when I am out with the guys? Me and my friends are trying to live by your 10 Commandments for Drinking Like a Man, but aren’t sure what to order other than Jaeger and Jaeger Bombs.

Help!

Ladies No More”

Relax fellas…I know it’s not easy ordering shots when out on the town. Most shots are designed to be easy to drink (or designed by assholes to make you puke, which isn’t very manly), especially when in the mixed company of your ladyfriends. Jaeger certainly walks the line of being high-alcohol content but relatively easy to drink, but there’s so much more out there. Eventually you have to grow up and stop drinking like a 21-year old college freshman and find some new booze. The thing is, bars want everyone to drink and have a good time, and that’s all well and good when you’re out with a big group, but sometimes men need to be men and drink like men with men in the most manly of fashions. We need to drink like our ancestors. Like warriors. We need to drink like the mountain-wrestling bear-punching KINGS we were born to be. It’s in our blood damnit, and I’m here to help… I’ve got the medicine for what ails ya (here’s a hint: it’s booze!). So lace up your booties, Beatrice, it’s…

1. Whiskey – If you’d really read those 10 Commandments, you’d have noticed it right there at the top at #1. Whiskey. And where shots are concerned, bourbon and Tennessee whiskey are where you should go. I hate to sound like a broken record, but the truth of the matter is that we as men have lost our way. Did you know that 50-some years ago, 80% of ALL alcohol sales were whiskey? Our fathers and grandfathers and on and on back drank whiskey, and so should you. So if you don’t like it…well golly, it sounds like the problem is with you, doesn’t it? Bourbon is the national spirit of the United States for a reason. Not loving it is akin to sharing a slice of bald-eagle-and-apple pie with Bin Laden while crapping on a burning flag and bad-mouthing your mother’s meatloaf. Dadgum freedom hater.

Don’t you DARE make that face, Sally

2. Tequila. Straight Up. – I’ve already told you how to drink it, so do it! You can (almost) never go wrong with an alcohol 80 proof or above, and tequila is an easy one that most everyone can drink without having to strain their tear ducts crying about. Truth be told, drinking tequila chilled with salt and lime is called “training wheels” (as I was once enlightened/humiliated by a waitress to find out), and if you’re really looking for manly drinking, you’ll drink it however the hell they choose to serve it, training wheels or not. Once on vacation I was with a group in a dumpy locals bar on the beach and we asked for 7 tequila shots. Lucky for us, we were being served by a jerk-ass waitress who decided room-temp tequila with no salt or lime was the way to punish us for having the gall to step into her establishment. While everyone else stared bug-eyed and bemused, starting to complain and cry at their shot glasses, I took control and said “F- it” and downed the dirty bastard without hesitation. The other guys with our group saw me do it, knew what was expected of them, and followed suit. While I was troubled at first that they didn’t immediately drink as I had, I had mad respect for them for repressing whatever girly instinct had been bred into them and joining me in the Brotherhood of Booze. We ordered another, and said “make ‘em just like the last ones” just to spite her.

3. Irish Car Bomb – Can any drink named after a horrible terrorist act really be girly? HELL NO! While the Hezbollah Hand-Grenade Lemonade languishes in obscurity, the Irish Car Bomb is an easy drink that any bar on the planet can and will make for you. While it contains the gender-questionable Bailey’s Irish Creme, it more than makes up for it with the inclusion of Guinness and Jameson. The fact that it doesn’t usually cost more than a regular shot, but includes not just a shot of booze PLUS half a glass of beer it certainly ups the man-factor. In the battle of paying a lot vs. drinking a lot….drinking a lot always wins.

Get drinkin’, gents

4. Three Wise Men – I’ve heard numerous variations on this over the years, but wikipedia has a very acceptable definition:

1. 1 part Johnnie Walker
2. 1 part Jack Daniels
3. 1 part Jim Beam

The wild-card I’ve seen thrown in with these guys is Jose Cuervo (just because he’s Mexican doesn’t mean he isn’t wise, RACIST). Which makes sense, because mixing 3 whiskeys together isn’t all that tough to drink or more manly than drinking just 1 whiskey. Including tequila would be quite the cruel joke (which is of course a joke I’ve played on many an unsuspecting novice).

5. Absinthe – If you care at all for your well-being, you will never drink this. It’s not even meant to be drank as a shot. I only include it because drinking it will literally age your entire body 17 years (and what’s more manly than being an old man?). It tastes like cough-syrup set on fire and then gargled and pissed out by Satan himself, is 140 proof, and spends its downtime thinking up new ways to murder puppies. Just because it’s now legal in the States does not mean you should drink it. I’d rather drink brake fluid chased by AIDS-needles than drink this horrible shit… but if you can stomach it without louching it or otherwise diluting it, you’re a stupider better man than I. I have a very personal aversion to absinthe (much like my aversion to mezcal) that makes my stomach curdle and butthole clench at the very mention of it. Anyone who can shoot this straight gets my seal of approval/insanity without question. Consider yourself an M-1 Abrams Tank made out of cowboys and great white sharks if you can shoot this straight-up.

And so wraps up another installment of the heart-stopping web-drama Ask DrinkPlanner. Did we miss any manly shots?  Disagree with us?  Post it in the comments!

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