Weed And Wine: Together At Last

Feature image via thekitchn.com

You’ve really got to hand it to Californians on this one. They’ve taken two of their most abundant crops — wine grapes and weed –and combined them to create cannabis cabernets.

“The recipe for pot wine, such as it is, consists of dropping one pound of marijuana into a cask of fermenting wine, which yields about 1.5 grams of pot per bottle; the better the raw materials—grapes and dope—the better the wine. The fermentation process converts the sugar in grapes into alcohol, and alcohol extracts the THC from marijuana.”

Apparently the wine has been around since the Reagan administration — and its War On Drugs — and sold for as much as $100 a bottle. Since then, a lot of the stigma and danger surrounding weed has disappeared and pot wine has become more popular. Crane Carter, president of the Napa Valley Marijuana Growers, thinks we can expect to see more of it in the next few years. “People love wine,” he says, “and they love weed.”

via helablog.com

New Studies Say LGBTs Suffer Anxiety, Depression, and Substance Abuse, Oh My

Slowly but surely, a body of research is being built up about LGBT people and their needs as people and as patients. We already know that many doctors and medical students don’t have specific training on how to treat LGBT populations; many don’t even know that specific training is required, or that we have unique health needs. We know that discrimination, and incidents like anti-gay bullying, negatively impact our mental health and well-being. We know that LGBT populations face high levels of psychological and emotional stress as a stigmatized group, which factors into heightened levels of substance abuse.

Now, a study from Australia tells us that beyond just suffering from higher levels of mental health problems than the average population, almost 80% of LGBT people have suffered “intense anxiety” in the past year. Maybe that’s related to the fact that that apparently “almost half of the more than 4000 GLBT people surveyed said they hid their sexuality or gender identity in a range of situations for fear of heterosexist violence or discrimination,” and some reported feeling like they had to keep their sexual orientation a secret from even their medical practitioner. Less than 70% of those surveyed said that their general practitioner knew their sexual orientation, and roughly 25% didn’t even have a regular GP.

not everyone can have a therapist like ellen

Young people aged 16-24 were described as “more likely than any other age group to hide their sexuality or gender identity.” This may help explain why in another study conducted at the University of Michigan in fairly liberal Ann Arbor, LGBT students are “significantly more likely to report[…] alcohol or drug use and problematic drinking and problematic drug use.” The study found an explicit correlation between experiences of discrimination and substance abuse, indicating that even in the supposedly safe atmosphere of a college campus, anti-gay hostility and discrimination is seriously affecting the ability of queer students to live healthy, happy lives. The research indicated that even “sexual minority students who knew others who were subjected to hostility were at increased risk for having a drinking problem.” Overall, it suggests that while we’ve already more or less established that experiencing anti-gay harassment is damaging to mental health and well-being, the general atmosphere of inequality and microaggressions that queer people experience also add up to a significant impact on psychological health, even for young people.

Looking at the various factors that make up someone’s health status is always complicated. For instance, it seems like LGBT people’s substance abuse is correlated with stigma and anti-gay discrimination; but it may also be compounded by the fact that LGBTs (and other marginalized populations) are less likely to have health insurance or equal access to healthcare, as substance abuse can function as an attempt to self-medicate for people with anxiety or depression. Given that when LGBT people try to access counseling services there’s a chance that their therapist may try to “treat” their sexual orientation rather than their anxiety, they may not see counseling as an option — which in turn would lead to anxiety as a reaction to experiencing stigma and discrimination. It’s a difficult problem to disentangle, but the more studies we have that can point to specific correlations in the experience of LGBT people, the better chance we’ll have at making life better for our community.

Ice Cream And Beer Are Delicious Best Friends

Whitney’s Team Pick:

Beer! Ice cream! These are two of the best things, and they might be even better together. I once read a recipe for a Guinness ice cream float, which requires Guinness, vanilla ice cream and an optional splash of Bailey’s Irish cream (I should probably get on that right now). If you’re looking for something more like beer in your ice cream than ice cream in your beer, though, The Brewer’s Cow has got you covered.

The Brewer’s Cow makes beer-infused ice cream with flavors like Ten Penny Beer Nut Parfait, Black and Tan, and Bavarian Beer Brittle (and a yet-to-be-available Chocolate Truffle Stout flavor, which is what I would spring for).

via http://thebrewerscow.com/

The Beer Nut Parfait flavor includes beer nuts, Ten Penny Ale, chocolate fudge and vanilla caramel. I have no idea what beer nuts are, but they sound delicious. (Actually, I just checked and beer nuts are actually peanuts, which I am allergic to. So, maybe I won’t eat this re: fatality, but it sounds delicious in concept.)

via http://thebrewerscow.com/

The Black and Tan flavor is infused with Guinness Draught and contains a “decadent Munson’s Chocolate Truffle Fudge weave.” I don’t think I’ve ever heard of something that sounded so delicious and simultaneously sounded like a textile.

via http://thebrewerscow.com/

The Bavarian Beer Brittle is made with Sam Adams beer and Munson’s Bavarian Beer Brittle (which I have also checked, and it turns out it also contains peanuts; sad news for me, blissful news for the eight million Autostraddlers who avidly commented in the “10 Things That Taste Good with Peanut Butter” post — remember that one?). Anyway, if I may extend my imagining-what-peanuts-taste-like imagination, this sounds pretty amazing too — and the description of this flavor definitely sells it:

“The Brewer’s Cow Beer infused Ice Cream is a taste sensation that starts sweet and malty and finishes with the essence of your favorite brew.”

I find the lolcat font on the ice cream pint kind of hilarious. via http://thebrewerscow.com/

The last is the Chocolate Truffle Stout flavor, which does not contain peanuts (two out of four! not too bad) — instead it contains Thomas Hooker beer and chocolate truffle sauce.

The ice cream is a little pricy — for $79, (which includes flat-rate shipping) you get six pints of beer ice cream, which includes two pints of each flavor (except the Chocolate Truffle Stout). If you’re craving The Brewer’s Cow beer ice cream, you could probably go in and buy a pack with five other friends and fight to the death over which one is yours, gladiator-style. Or you could, you know, just share the ice cream. That’s what I hear people do these days.

An alternative is making a Guinness ice cream float at home, which is what I’ll probably end up doing, partly because of money but mainly because of the speed at which I can start eating beer ice cream (that is, immediately). All you have to do is take a few scoops of vanilla ice cream, top it off with Guinness and add Bailey’s Irish cream / whipped cream / chocolate fudge to your liking. Off you go!

Where Were They While She Was Getting High?

Last week the Center for American Progress released a study about things we already kind of knew, namely the fact that LGBT populations experience higher rates of substance use and abuse, and that this fact may be the result of systematic discrimination and prejudice. These are facts that we keep hearing and re-stating and complaining about hearing again, but there’s a reason that we keep hearing them, and that’s because no one is doing anything about it.

You’ve probably heard them before, but let’s run through the numbers.

+ Gay and trans people smoke tobacco up to 200 percent more than their heterosexual and nontransgender peers

+ 25 percent of gay and transgender people abuse alcohol, compared to 5 to 10 percent of the general population

+ Men who have sex with men are 12.2 times more likely to use amphetamines than men who do not have sex with men and are also 9.5 times more likely to use heroin

+ Gay and lesbian adults are roughly twice as likely as the general population to be without health insurance coverage, and rates of uninsurance are even higher for transgender and bisexual individuals

Granted that this study is a little bit less than fair because it tends to lump statistics for cis women, cis men, trans women and trans men altogether under the title of ‘gay and transgender people,’ it still speaks loudly to the utter lack of resources available to LGBT people in the face of adversity, and later, in the face of a health crisis.

Despite the flaws that may be present in the study, it’s a big step in the sense that rather than painting a portrait of depraved individuals lying in gutters or empty hotel rooms, we’re starting to actually make the connections between the individuals and the causes, and through this, we’re starting to understand the gravity of the effect. At the most simple and possibly most dramatic, we can say that discrimination is literally killing us. At the least, we can say that the manner in which substance abuse is viewed combined with the lack of resources available for LGBT people is not only dangerous but downright irresponsible.

At the same time, however, some of these numbers are caused by less dramatic ideas — LGBTs reliance on “bar culture” for socialization is also a contributing factor.

The Center for American Progress attributes LGBT substance abuse primarily to what it calls minority stress, or “the negative effects associated with the adverse social conditions experienced by individuals of a marginalized social group.” Minority stress ranges from individualized attacks such as verbal or physical harassment to more institutionalized forms of discrimination in areas like employment, housing, relationship recognition and healthcare. Also, there’s often tension between LGBT people and their families or communities that lead them to feel alienated in a way that easily engenders substance abuse. From having to remain in the closet to being kicked out of one’s home to having to deal with a breakup you can’t talk to anybody about, the list of reasons LGBT people are more likely to turn to substances to cope than other people are numerous.

And while it seems like kind of a stretch to say that discriminatory laws are an indirect cause of substance abuse, the danger in systematic discrimination is that it implies an invalidation of personhood. Although ideally we’d all get our validation from someplace besides the government (or, you know, smash the state and liberate everyone from the tyranny of marriage), there’s a certain level of validation that many people need from the state in order to, well, survive, and that’s important too.

The problem is that we continue to trivialize substance abuse and pathologize individuals rather than ask tougher questions about what in our society might causing huge spikes of abuse in certain groups. It’s actually scary because sometimes the only resources or coping mechanisms available to individuals dealing with ostracism, homophobia and violence are drugs and alcohol. These things are compounding upon each other and killing individuals while making it look like they’re killing themselves. It frees society from the blame, and it frees the government from any sort of responsibility. It has an adverse effect on the LGBT community, facilitating a narrative of queer people as disposable drug addicts with little to contribute to society. And it almost seems to make sense: if the laws don’t fully recognize us, why should we fully recognize the law?

We need to view substance abuse as a health issue, and we need to understand that the presence or lack of culturally competent healthcare providers can literally be a matter of life or death when it comes to LGBT folk seeking help. We should not consider it anything less than a right to have our health ensured by the government, and we should demand a level of cultural competence that makes us feel welcome and comfortable in health care facilities, not anxious, violated or unsafe.

Have a Feeling: Chocolate Cheddar Cheese

Laneia’s Team Pick:

Chocolate Cheddar Cheese.

This cheese is so fucking weird. Honestly I think you’d like it, but only if you listen to me and do exactly as I say. You don’t get to have an opinion about this cheese until you’ve done everything I’ve told you to do here. You can’t even say that you think it sounds gross because of course it sounds gross — it’s Chocolate Cheddar Cheese. The fact that it sounds gross is not news. The fact that you might like it, could be.

You Will Need

red wine
grapes
the cheese
some crusty bread (if only for a palette cleanser because boy howdy, you’re gonna need one)

1. Take a drink of the wine. In the same movement that places the glass back on the table, reach for a small super tiny cube of the chocolate cheese and put that cube in your mouth.

2. You’re eating the cheese now. It’s weird. There’s probably not another word to describe it. Odd, maybe. Confusing. Ok there are two other words to describe it. Reach for a grape.

3. As soon as you swallow the cheese, eat the grape.

4. Form an opinion/feeling.

What are you thinking now? I like it. I like it the way I like watching Toddlers and Tiaras — it feels tacky, but once-removed, somehow. And it’s best in small allotments. I can justify it. I don’t know, you guys. It works for me.

Autostraddle.com is not affiliated with Trader Joe’s, except that a lot of us shop there, and this one girl we know works there and we like her a bunch, but that had nothing to do with this.
Seriously.

Playlist: Could Everyone Just Be Real Quiet For Like Ten Minutes

We’ve already provided you with a wealth of advice and resources on handling hangovers and mornings-after. But once you’ve got your plate of fried whatever and your coffee and your Gatorade and you’ve taken eighteen Advil (just kidding, don’t do that), you’re still lacking something: appropriate musical accompaniment! Unfortunately your usual Saturday morning routine of making scrambled eggs in your boyshorts while blasting Kid Sister is not going to cut it, because any music with so much as a handclap or a cymbal crash makes you feel like you just shut your head in a car door. So here’s a set of soothing, inoffensive tracks you can listen to without making whatever you did to your brain cells last night too much worse, and should get you through at least an hour or so of sandwiching your head in between two pillows and wishing for death.

PHOTO CREDIT: FLICKR USER INDIEFOX

Sunday – Sia
Pure Hands – Khoiba
This Is Twice Now – Lydia
Life Being What It Is – Kaki King
Sovay – Andrew Bird
Sure Thing – Grizzly Bear
America – Simon & Garfunkel
Breathe Me – Sia
Islands – The XX
Bear – The Antlers
The Longest Winter – Pedro The Lion
Oh Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head! (Rebuild! Restore! Reconsider!) – Sufjan Stevens
How To Embrace A Swamp Creature – The Mountain Goats
Prince Of Peace – School of Seven Bells
Surprise Ice – Kings Of Convenience
Murphey Bed – Mirah
Toxic – Yael Naim
Bad Girl – Shirley Collins & Davy Graham
The One I Love – Rosie Thomas

STREAM THE PLAYLIST HERE

Want to suggest a playlist theme? Hit Crystal up on Formspring and someone on the team will make it for you.

Movie Night: Josie and the Pussycats

Welcome to Movie Night! Where we choose a movie based on any number of variables and feelings, create a themed menu to match, then spend the night eating these foods and watching these movies! It’s an uncomplicated but promising plan.

This movie night is inspired by friendship! Friendship is so in this season. The first time I watched this movie was on an actual movie night with my best friend who I really needed some time with. The last time I watched this movie was on another actual movie night with my best friend who I just moved really close to! We all love early-2000s kitsch. We all love all-girl bands. We all love whiskey. And everybody loves whiskey girls. This movie and this activity are all of these things. Fuck yeah.

THE MOVIE

JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS

[ buy me ]

Synopsis, from imdb:

For years, the record industries have inserted subliminal messages into music so that they can turn teenagers into braindead zombies who do nothing but buy, buy, buy. And whenever the musician or band finds out the truth, the record company silences them to keep the truth from coming out. When the hot boy band DuJour discovers this, their manager, Wyatt Frame, under his evil, corrupt boss, Fiona, has the plane they are flying in crashed and him looking for a new band to use for their evil schemes. Enter Josie, the ditzy Melody, and the tough Valerie, from Josie and the Pussycats, a small band who wants to make it to the big top. When they are discovered by Wyatt, they give in and become big rock stars. But will they find out that they are just pawns for the record industry or will fame take them over?

Real talk: this movie came out in 2001, and I hadn’t seen it until last year. Like, late last year. I had just moved in with my best friend/bro, but somehow we never had time to see each other. She proposed a movie night featuring Josie and the Pussycats, a catchy, poppy movie about a small town girlband and heartwarming, everlasting friendship. Also! It’s about consumer culture and the record industry and beauty standards and being a loser in high school. AND it’s funny. Basically, I am trying to date this movie.

groupies needed

I’m not sure if Josie and the Pussycats is officially considered a musical, but regardless of the fact, there’s a lot of music in it. And it seemed like that would be a problem, because for me, there’s something about watching musicals in the company of others that always makes me slightly nervous. Like, I don’t know what to do when the music comes on. Do I pretend like it’s just like any other part of the movie? If I know the words, do I sing the words? Do I dance? DO I CLAP? Usually I just smile and shift and maybe move my shoulders a little. Also sometimes I sip my drink and try to let go of what a truly crazy person I feel like for feeling nervous about musicals. Josie makes me feel a little better about this because it’s just fun. And it’s cute, and it’s self-referential to the point where you don’t feel alone in knowing that this is a musical based on a comic book.

Alexander: You know what? I still don’t understand why you’re here.
Alexandra: I’m here because I was in the comic book.

MGM should consider re-releasing Josie and the Pussycats under a new title, perhaps Shit Lesbians Loved About the 90s, most notably: Rachael Leigh Cook with wind in her hair, Rosario Dawson as a badass, Tara Reid as a ditz, Alan Cumming and Parker Posey as misshapen, lisping villains, ice sculptures, frequent use of the word pussy(cat), boy bands, lesbian innuendo, an underdog spirit, Carson Daly, leopard print and of course, everlasting friendship.

The first time I got drunk while watching this movie with my friend, we ended up at a gay leather bar afterward. You can do anything!

THE MENU

CHERRY WHISKEY

Do I look like the kind of girl who’s going to stay at home and cook for you? Actually, the truth is, I really would. I just don’t know how. So here’s dinner:

1. Pick up the phone
2. Order a pizza, ask for some veggies on that shit, maybe some goat cheese.

Do this before you start with the whiskey, lest you desire to find yourself at 1 in the morning pantsless and drunk receiving several extra large pizzas with extra extra toppings that you requested emphatically and repeatedly over the phone, tipping the delivery driver $20 because he had to come all the way out to your apartment.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s move on to the main event.

This past month I turned 22, which is a big upgrade from when I turned 21 and started drinking in public. Because I am an extremely mature human, I felt like I wanted to look and act classier than all the other 21-year-olds at bars, which basically led to a lot of silly Maker’s Mark experiences. The result of this, I found, was not discreet maturity but rather ‘small lesbian trying to look like an old man.’ And, more importantly, it was pocket-emptyingly expensive. Somewhere in the midst of this I was reminded by a bartender friend something I had long forgotten: Jim Beam is the shit. It’s tasty, it’s cheap, it’s fun, and you can mix it without being wasteful.

And, it fucking comes in cherry.

Josie: If I could go back in time and change everything back, I would!
Melody: That’s really cool. If I could go back in time, I would want to meet Snoopy.

The idea for tonight is a mixing challenge combined with a drinking game. I am no bartender. In fact, I have done some terrible things to liquor in the name of trying to look like a fancyass. And so instead of drinking one sort of embarrassing drink all night long, we hit the bodega and bought several different mixers in hopes of finding something tasty. The challenge: never drink the same drink twice. It’s like science!

The following were found by majority agreement to have been the most successful of the night:

Ingredients
Jim Beam Red Stag, or the cherry whiskey of your choice

The mixers
ginger beer
lemonade
cranberry juice
pineapple soda
limes
Cherry Coke
soda water

I tried to name these in a way that was cute and maybe movie-referential, but it kind of just ended up being a mixed bag of nuts, which might go well with your drinks.

Spin Around
1 part cherry whiskey
2 parts ginger beer
soda water

Add whiskey and ginger beer over ice because you don’t have a shaker. Add soda water to taste. Throw a slice of lime on it, ’cause you’re classy.

The Pussycats
1.5 parts cherry whiskey
3 parts lemonade
splash cranberry
soda water

Mix all that shit together in a glass with ice in this order: liquor, lemonade, cranberry. Add soda to taste.

The Ricky (actually, a real basic drink that I think everyone should know about)
2 oz. cherry whiskey
1/2 lime
soda water

Muddle half lime in glass. Add whiskey and seltzer to taste. Shake and serve over ice. Mhm.

The College Freshman
1 oz. cherry whiskey
2 oz. Cherry Coke

Take a shot of Red Stag and chase with Cherry Coke before you can taste anything but artificial cherry flavoring. Bonus points if you’re drinking the whiskey out of a water bottle.

The Game
Take a drink every time there is a product placement in the movie. If you’ve seen the movie, you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t seen it, you’ll see what I’m talking about, and I can’t wait to hear it tomorrow morning over brunch!

Your State May or May Not Be Binge Drinking By Your Side

I think the first time someone told me that binge drinking was defined as over four drinks for women in one night, I was already past my limit.

The sort-of-good news is that nobody’s judging, even if I am caught sleeping in my underwear on top of the sheets. Binge drinking is actually kind of an American pastime right now, according to the Center for Disease Control. The CDC describes the high levels of binge drinking in the U.S. as “a dangerous and costly public health problem,” and it turns out it’s “a bigger problem than [they] thought.”

The CDC recently sought out data on who is binge drinking, as well as how many other people are, how often they’re doing it, and where they live. Here’s some stuff they learned:

+ Income group that binge drinks the most often and drinks most per binge: less than $25,000
+ Most alcohol-impaired drivers binge drink.
+ Most people who binge drink are not alcohol dependent or alcoholics.
+ More than half of the alcohol adults drink is while binge drinking.
+ More than 90% of the alcohol youth drink is while binge drinking.

But they dug even deeper, and located the states with lots of binge drinkers:

There is something of a binge drinking belt across the north of the country, running westward from New England, Pennsylvania and Ohio to Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota and Montana. Alaska ranks high too, suggesting that long, cold winters might play a role, though tropical Hawaii is in the top tier as well.

This is the map they created to illustrate the “binge drinking belt,” and show you a state-by-state comparison of how many people are binge drinking in the melting pot:

And here’s how many drinks people are buying there, too:

Richard Florida and Charlotta Mellander looked into the study further in search of correlations and found that extroverted liberals are livin’ la vida loca:

Binge drinking is more common in liberal states, those voted for Obama in 2008, and it is negatively associated with states that voted for McCain (with correlations of roughly .3 and -.3 respectively). Binge drinking states are also more “extroverted.” The correlation between extroverted personality types (one of the “big five” personality traits identified by psychologists) and binge drinking is .3.

Binge drinking is also more prevalent in more affluent states (the correlation with economic output per capita is .3). This is in line with the CDC’s own finding that the income group with the most binge drinkers is those making more than $75,000. Binge drinking is also higher in more educated states, with a correlation of .36 to the share of adults who are college grads. Both are in line with national patterns I charted last year, which found even stronger associations between alcohol consumption and economic output and human capital. Although I should also note that the CDC found that the income group that binge drinks more often (as opposed to the sheer number of binge drinking participants) and drinks the most per binge is those making $25,000 a year or less.

Still it may come as some surprise that binge drinking is more prevalent in states whose socio-economic profiles would seem more in line with latte sipping than brewski chugging.

At the same time, the fact that some aspect of excessive binge drinking has been assigned to opposite income groups, one could suggest that what the CDC found out was that Americans just drink a lot. Period.

Last year, a Gallup report found that “one of the most significant predictors of alcohol consumption is church attendance. Those who seldom or never attend church are substantially more likely than more frequent church attenders to say they drink; and those who have no religious identity, Catholics, and non-Christians are more likely to drink than Protestants.” How does the Pew Forum’s map of religious service attendance compare to the Binge-Drinking map?

Gallup also has some interesting data about what kind of alcohol people drink broken down into different demographic groups.

Anyhow, alcohol sales have remained steady throughout the recession, unlike just about everything else. Binge drinking is generally a bad idea, and may cause embarassment, endangerment, the purchase of one to three Domino’s pizzas with or without cheesy breads, and a need to spend the next day asleep and/or watching Netflix. It can also kill you or people around you. At the very least, you’ll get a serious hangover and need to wash your hair. But we keep on at it. I guess sometimes you just wanna let go.

Having Fun at a Gay Bar 101: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Before I started going to girl bars and dyke nights I thought they would basically be the best thing ever. I sort of imagined it would be like the fairy scenes on True Blood. Like we’d be dancing around in clean linen and falling in love with each other. Except with more Lady Gaga and more booze and I’d be wearing a hot Nicole Miller dress. Sort of like The Sims meets Gossip Girl meets Brittana.

And at first, it seemed like I was having fun. For a while. The girls night I went to is the largest in New England so it was always packed, had a great DJ and usually promised a night of awesome dancing. At some point, between the night where my friend walked to her ex’s house with my keys, phone and money in her boot, the night where I sobbed to strangers about losing my credit card in the bathroom and the one where I held my friend’s hair as she vomited onto the street, I realized “Oh shit, this sucks.”

Somehow what worked for going out normally wasn’t working when I went to girls nights. So I made a plan. A plan to have fun at gay bars. A plan which I absolutely promise totally totally works (most of the time).

+

Low Expectations

Have really low expectations leading up the going out. I don’t mean right before you leave, I mean all week. All month if you don’t go out too much. Really really really low.

Sometimes going out can seem like an overpriced and overdressed game of Hide-and-Go-Seek — you arrive at the bar with your friends, wrestle crowds to get a drink, lose track of your friends, find your friends, and then go to Pancheros. I’m often tempted to suggest that we fast forward past the part where we “go out” to the part where we go get pizza afterwards.

via jet4ime.tumblr.com

Real talk: it’s highly unlikely that you will meet the girl of your dreams at a girl bar. To be honest, it’s unlikely you’ll meet any girls at a girl bar, but it’s definitely possible that you’ll see every ex you’ve ever had dancing with their hot new girlfriends. Your expectations should be similar to those you might have in anticipation of your mother’s 65th birthday party: a lot of couples will be there, you probably won’t get hit on and there’s a good chance you might see your cousin. With this mindset, anything even marginally okay that happens, even if it’s just drinks being $6.50 instead of $7, will make your entire night!

But be excited! I mean, you’ve already decided you’re going to have fun. Remember how much fun your mom’s 65th was? You drank all those Shirley Temples and danced to The Black Eyed Peas with your cousin!

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Start Early

Starting early doesn’t mean you should start pre-gaming at lunch, it’s about having a plan and getting somewhere on time. If you’re gonna drop $9 on a beer and spend significant time fixing your eyeliner, make your outing worth it!

Coordinating with lots of lesbians to get from point A to Point Q, especially if you live in different places all around your town/city, is a disaster waiting to happen. Really you should just plan on going with one or two other friends and tell the rest you’ll see them there — but be fully prepared for that couple who always ditches at the last minute to ditch at the last minute because they aren’t “feeling well” or because they “heard about a better party.”

Ideally coordinate for everyone to meet up and pre-game at one person’s apartment/dorm/house before heading out. Meet up early like at 5 pm. That seems early when you’re not aiming to arrive ’til 11 pm, but believe me, by the time you all get completely ready to go, eat some pizza and drink a little booze it’ll be 11. Also figure out all the minutes it’ll take you to get to the bar — 10 minutes in your car? 15 to catch a cab? 45 waiting for the subway?

Aim for 10pm so you can avoid the epic line that dampens everybody’s spirits. You might be some of the first few people in the bar but that’s okay. Besides, realistically you won’t end up there on time anyways.

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Look Hot, Wear Pants

Make sure ahead of time you’ve got clean socks, the right bra, and the top you wanna wear. You’ll feel epically uncomfortable if your favorite shirt is dirty and you have to wear your second-favorite shirt, and you’ll have more fun if you look hot. The key to looking hot is comfort. If you feel good, you’ll look good, and generally have a better time. If you need your friends’ help to pick something, get that taken care of between one week to five hours pre-party. Oh, and wear pants.

Wearing pants isn’t really about gender presentation, it’s about convenience. Wearing a dress/skirt and therefore having to bring a purse is a terrible idea. You’ll put it down at the bar/in the bathroom/in a corner and either worry about it incessantly, forget it, or have it get stolen, which is heartbreaking because then you know that one of your fellow lesbian sisters stole your purse. Also, dancing with a purse is annoying.

Giving your cash/keys/cellphone to a pants-wearing friend/girlfriend/acquaintance is an equally terrible idea. If that someone meets another someone and they go off somewhere to do something, you can’t even access your cash to buy another drink while you wait for them to, erm, finish up. If you and that someone have a fight, and they have your stuff, you’re stuck having that fight until they decide to let you leave. Wear pants and put your cash, cards and cellphone in your pocket and attach your keys to your belt loop with a carabiner.

I went through a phase where I was always wearing dresses to girls night and sticking my cars and cash in my bra and my cell phone and keys in my boots. I learned the boot trick from Alex on Wizards of Waverly Place (that’s where she keeps her wand). This worked really well except my cell phone would drop to the bottom of my boot causing me to repeatedly step on it. Also it meant I had to always wear boots with dresses which was a bummer because it gets hot and sweaty on the dance floor. But if you must wear a skirt, stick it in the boot.

Finally, and this is a touchy subject, I think wearing pants can really calm some of those “Everyone here thinks I’m someone else’s straight friend” feelings. I think having possession of your own stuff is a much more important factor in terms of having fun and being safe, but I know for some femme queers (i.e. me) just wearing pants can ease a lot of anxiety. Plus then you’ll be warmer waiting in line and know you won’t accidentally flash anyone!

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Don’t Drink Too Much

If you don’t drink, that’s great! You’ve already mastered this rule! For everyone else, this can be a bit tricky. Liquid courage is a thing, but falling down, getting lost, crying to your ex, kissing your ex, kissing your friend, kissing your friend’s ex, losing your money or vomiting is embarrassing and not fun. It’s easy to overdo it without realizing it. Hell is getting kicked out of the club for falling too many times. Getting puking shitfaced in public (or having a friend who does) is not fun. It is the most not fun you can possibly have at any sort of drinking and dancing establishment. It is worse than 100 crying kittens in the rain.

But there’s an easy solution. Measure out your drinks. Count your drinks. Also, maybe this is implied, but make and buy your own drinks! I’m not gonna lie, if I’m having dinner with a few friends or going to a dive bar to sit around for a while I don’t always count my drinks. But when I go to a girl party? I absolutely have to.

One easy way to keep track is to wear a ring on your ring finger on your right hand and move that ring over a finger every time you have a drink. Mark the finger where you decide ahead of time you want to stop. Usually I have one less than as many drinks as I’m planning to before I leave and then one when I get there, therefore leaving more sober than I arrived.

If you’re one of those people who will put an unknown amount of booze into a water bottle with an unknown amount of Kool-Aid/Vitamin Water/Coke and drink it all the way there, then there’s a really good chance that something fucked up will happen. (Although it is way cheaper than buying drinks at the bar, and I cannot argue with you there.) If you insist upon this, please please please prepare yourself by having three solid meals that day, and ideally also snacks.

Have Fun With Your Friends

Every now and then, you’ll make a new friend or meet a new activity partner at a bar. But one of the most disappointing aspects of girls nights is how insular some cliques of girls seem to be. If you’re used to getting hit on at straight bars, you might feel like nobody likes you at a girl bar and have all kinds of inadequacy issues. DON’T. They’re all just as nervous as you are, weirdo!

So just have fun with who you came with, and sometimes you’ll attract newcomers. Don’t huddle in an exclusionary group, and if you see someone looking alone and awkward, go talk to them! What’s the worst thing that can happen? A total stranger will be weird to you?

Leave When You Want To

Come prepared to leave when you want to. Stick an extra $20 in a separate pocket/bra/shoe just for cab fare or have a sober friend who you know will pick you up whenever you want them to. It’s okay to leave the bar before it closes. It’s okay to even leave at 10:30pm if you feel like it. A really great night can get completely ruined by waiting around for an extra two hours of shittiness.

I brought up these guidelines to a friend, and she pointed out to me that she would probably get nervous and “Leave When You Want To” could turn in to leave immediately. I was in London during Pride a few years ago and went by myself to this girl bar Candy Bar. I was so terrified and nervous (and only 20 so I had never been to a gay bar in the US) that I almost left about eight times before even ordering a drink. I’m so glad I didn’t because I ended up making friends and having a great night! With that in mind, I would say an important caveat is to leave when you want to because you’re tired, you’ve had plenty of fun already, or the DJ is really bad. Don’t leave because you’re nervous, intimidated, scared, shy, embarrassed or you spot your ex on the other side of the room. Find your friends (or make new ones) and party until you’re done. Then get the hell out before things get sloppy.

You deserve to have some fun, and going out to a gay bar should be a wholly joyous occasion. There are pitfalls to be sure and any given night can unaffectedly take a turn for the worst, but if you stick to some basic rules you should be just fine and have a great time. Good luck out there.

Useful Drink Snobbery

Laneia’s Team Pick:

If you’re a fan of bars and drinks, How to Order a Proper Drink at Any Bar, Anywhere might be relevant to your life.

Ordering a drink that isn’t listed on a bar’s drink menu — if the bar even has a menu — is less a question of etiquette and more one of metaphysics. It’s not rude to order the wrong drink at a bar, but you’ll still look like an asshole. Most bartenders are willing to accommodate whatever the customer orders, but as Jackson Cannon, bar manager at Eastern Standard in Boston, told me, “it may be a disaster.”

You’ll learn where it’s safe to order a Vieux Carre (I don’t even know), and where you should just stick with a vodka tonic. I feel like one day, when I’m fancy, this kind of information will be priceless.

Are you good at ordering drinks? How do you feel about cocktails in general? What’s your favorite? Or we could just talk about whiskey some more.

this is not fancy, tequila cat. not fancy at all.

How to Drink: Whiskey

…

Q:
You are the whiskey person, right? What’s the best whiskey? What’s the best cheap whiskey? What’s the best way to drink whiskey besides straight?

A:
Oh honey. I’d like to start by admitting that we really only know about 5% of what there is to know about whiskey, probably, therefore I’m gonna need you to keep your expectations kinda low and your eyes on the prize. The prize is whiskey, so that should be easy.

SMALL TINY LESSON

In case you were wondering what the hell’s going on re: whiskey vs whisky vs bourbon vs scotch, I’ve sailed the intergallactic sea of knowledge for you and come back with this:

I want to tell you that I don’t like the word ‘bourbon’ because it looks like something you’d slur when you’ve had too much whiskey and you meant to say ‘bubble’ or something, but I do like bourbon, actually. And I’m not the only one! So I’ve assembled a really special team of whiskey/y drinkers to share their whiskey/y brains and feelings with you. We’re talking about our favorites, though — not what we think is best. Because really, who are we to tell you what’s best? You drink you, little sail.

DeAnne Smith:

What’s the best whiskey?

Glenfiddich, 15 year reserve. Holy cow! How knowledgeable do I sound right now? (VERY.)

What’s the best cheap whiskey?

Wiser’s. It’s Canadian. It’s cheap. This is everything I know about it.

What’s the best way to drink whiskey besides straight?

In a Manhattan!

Christmakwanzakah Open Thread: Well, Happy Holigays Bitches

Hello hello and welcome one and all to our Bazillionth/Third Annual Holiday Open Thread, in which you are the puppeteer, store clerk, chef, bartender, hot air balloon technician, hostess, philosopher and DJ! So many hats for your little head, wherever will you find enough racks?

Remember la st year, when it was merely 2010 and we were all undoubtedly anticipating 11/11/11 so we could take notice, once and for all, that SOMEONE WAS REALLY REALLY THINKING ABOUT US?? That was a special time. Well now it’s This Year! And here you are, with sugarplums and lemurs dancing about in your head, maybe. Or maybe you’re just reading Us Magazine and considering an accent wall. Either way, Happy Weekend of Joy to you and yours!

TRADITION

Riese, Chief Charioteer of Dreams and Ideas, will be spending Festivus in Phoenix with Laneia, Dominatrix of Deadlines and Doubts, which should make for an interesting Top 10 article, in the very least, while Rachel, Eloquent Editor of Elephants and Others, braves the blustery winter chill of Family somewhere in the colder part of the country. Who knows what the rest of Team AS is up to! Measuring the speed of light in Maddows, probably, under the menorah tree.

don’t stop believin’

But what about you, my dear darling dove? What on earth are you doing this weekend? Does it involve carbohydrates and melted cheeses? Does it smell like pine cones and bourbon where you are? May we come? We desperately hope that you’re having a lovely time, which is why we wrote these things for you:

+ Many Holiday Drink Recipes
+ Things Our Mothers Cook
+ What You Can Do If You Have Kids or Will Be Near Some This Weekend
+ Several Songs to Listen to
+ Did You Forget the Menorah?
+ Talk of Video Games
+ How to Dress Up Like Black Swan (JK! But seriously, think about it.)

Please for the love of all things holy and good, share your soul with us here! Or at least your recipe for perfectly spiked eggnog, because it seems like shit is about to get Real.

You Need Help: Your Friend’s a Tool But Your Other Friend’s Ex Isn’t, Also: Jealousy

Hello and welcome to another rousing installment of You Need Help! This has traditionally been done by way of individual Formspring accounts, Autostraddle’s Tumblr and a Formspring Friday column, which has all been very fun and insightful. But, because Formspring has a character limit and we’re wildly optimistic w/r/t our time-management skills, we thought we’d go one further and let you use our ASS private messaging to share advice-related feelings, too.

For more info on sending in questions, see the bottom of this post. Let’s get down to bossing people around on the internet! Today we’re gonna talk about exes, jealousy and drunk straight girls, which — let’s face it — are the best kind of straight girls. Here we go!

Q:
My straight girl friend kept drunkenly kissing me at a party last night even though her boyfriend was there and I told her it was weird. Now I can’t stop over-analyzing it. How do I figure out what my feelings are doing?

A:
Your friend is a tool. That’s my first instinct. If this situation involved all heterosexuals — like the straight girl, her boyfriend and another guy instead of you — I would still think she was a tool. But! Because it does involve you and you’re a queer girl, I’m especially irritated by her. I guess there’s a chance that she didn’t mean any harm and would feel terrible if she knew that you were over-analyzing your feelings now, but I’m not giving her the benefit of the doubt. Nope.

Your friend is a tool. Tell her I said that.

Q:
Do I tell my girlfriend I am jealous of her new friendship with a girl she once said she found beautiful? This girl beats me in every catagery- she is beautiful and interesting and well-traveled. She has a boyfriend but she might be bisexual.

A:
I normally think you should share every last feeling with your girlfriend, but actually that’s going to backfire at least 10% of the time. This would be one of those times. Jealousy is a thing that’s born entirely inside your head. That’s not to say that it isn’t sometimes valid and based in actual reality, but the feelings you feel — those come straight from your interpretation of things.

And sometimes your interpretation of things is the most relevant part of a situation, like “When you called me a wool sweater, it made me feel sad and itchy.” Because in this case, the person who hurt your feelings has actively done something — maybe they said you were as useless as a wool sweater, for example — and you don’t want them to do it again. You want them to understand why being called a wool sweater is offensive and in order to feel safe around this person, you need to believe they won’t say it again. This kind of exchange is useful for the future of your relationship.

Get it?

But with jealousy, it’s all you. You can’t say, “When your friend is beautiful, it makes me feel inferior.” Because what is she going to do? Only have ugly friends? Is she going to ask her beautiful friends to stop being so beautiful? No. There’s nothing she can do here to change the way you feel about yourself, because this isn’t about being called a mean name or someone dismissing your feelings — this is about YOU.

Wait, let me start at the beginning: sometimes girls are beautiful. One girl being beautiful doesn’t take away from another girl being beautiful. Smart girls don’t make other girls stupid. Funny girls don’t make other girls bland. One girl’s possible bisexuality doesn’t take away from another girl’s gayness, either. And if this girl finds a way to make her hair the softest and shiniest it can ever be, it won’t take away from how cute your hair looked yesterday. Your hair looked really cute yesterday! Mine didn’t, but maybe it will today. That doesn’t matter. She doesn’t matter. You matter!

Also ‘jealousy’ is a blanket term, like ‘anger,’ that doesn’t really explain anything or exist on its own; it never gets to the source. You’re not jealous, actually — your feelings are from something else. If I feel jealous of a person, it’s usually because I’m embarrassed about something in my own life that I know I could’ve done better. So I’m embarrassed, not jealous. Like if a girl has a great ass, and my gf happens to notice, my number one feeling isn’t that I hate this girl for having the great ass, or that I hate my gf for looking, it’s GOD I WISH I’D DONE MORE YOGA LAST WEEK. I AM LAZY. I SHOULD’VE DONE YOGA INSTEAD OF WATCHING DISAPPEARED ON NETFLIX. SHIT. Because really, I should’ve done more yoga last week, you know? The girl with great ass can have that great ass, I want my own great ass, which is subjective, really, and maybe I should’ve used an example involving cupcakes or something, but the truth is that I don’t really care about baking, so it would’ve lacked authenticity.

If you feel jealous, take some time to get to what you’re really feeling. If what’s bothering you turns out to be something about yourself that you can and want to improve, great! Get started! If it’s an inferiority complex about how close together your eyes are or how you wish your legs were longer, let it go. Just let it the fuck go. Your legs will never get longer and there are your eyeballs, right where they’re gonna be. The end! And guess what — this is the best part and that’s why I saved it for last — your girlfriend is dating YOU, punk. Not that girl or another girl, but YOU.

And yes, sometimes we date people who fuck with our heads and do shady things that make us crazy with self-doubt, jealousy and depression, and those people should be forced to squeeze lemon juice onto their yeast infections, but I’m assuming this isn’t your situation. If it is, break up with her. Head games that lead to jealousy are NOT your fault and if your girlfriend is fucking with your feelings like that, we think she’s a tool, too.

Q:
Do you think it is wrong to date a friend’s ex? How would you tell your friend that you’re dating their ex?

A:
Do I think it’s wrong? Have you counted how many gay girls are within a 25 mile radius of you? Not only is it not wrong, but it’s also probably not avoidable. I understand why you’d be concerned, though. There are ~three things that may cause your friend to have a difficult time with this situation and they are:

1. How/why their relationship ended. If the break-up was especially horrible or traumatic, just the thought of her ex might be too much for her to handle. If the ex did something really nasty, like cheat on her, your friend probably won’t want you to date someone who’s capable of such atrocities.

2. She still has feelings for her. This is a judgment call — you could either let her lingering feelings trump whatever you’ve started feeling and bow out of things, or! You could see where your feelings take you, based on the fact that you have but one life to live, etc. No two feelingsfests of this nature are the same and each will require that you take several things into consideration before making your decision, you know?

3. She wonders if either of you had feelings for each other while they were still together, or some other form of self-doubt. This is rare, I think, but sometimes late at night after we’ve consumed the entire bottle of $3.99 cab, we may start to wonder, “Were they planning this? Did [person] use me to get closer to [person]?? In what ways did I fail with [ex] where [friend] is now succeeding? Am I a failure? Should I make a list and take it to my therapist tomorrow?” This kind of thinking is usually just ridiculous and unfounded and typically only happens in movies or on soap operas. Also, it will probably pass quickly, unless A) she’s right or B) she’s crazy. If either A) or B) are the case, there’s really nothing you can do, I think.

I would say that you tell her face-to-face if possible. Wait, sometimes it’s better to relay information in written form, so the person has time to gather their thoughts and calm themselves. But also, having time to gather their thoughts can sometimes mean having time to drive themselves a little nuts with assumptions and misinterpretations, too. This will be another judgment call on your part. Take all that you know about your friend and this situation into consideration and determine which form of communication would work best! There, that wasn’t really advice at all, was it? You win some/lose some.

Ok, your turn! Have you dated your friend’s ex or spoken up about jealousy or kissed your drunk straight friend in front of her boyfriend? How did those things work out for you? What should these people do? What’s your favorite $3.99 cab? I like Green Fin!

To send your question via ASS personal messaging, choose an editor: Riese | Laneia | Rachel
Or ask any team member you’d like: Meet the Team
*If messaging is down, email us! There are so many options, you guys! You could send carrier pigeons!*
For 100% anonymity, contact us through Formspring: Riese | Laneia | Rachel

Please keep your questions to around, at most, 100 words. Due to the high volume of questions and feelings, not every question or feeling will be answered or published on Autostraddle. We hope you know that we love you regardless.

Get Toasted with Autostraddle: The Holigay Drinkstravaganza

The holidays come but once a year, which is good, because it takes some of us a lot of alcohol to get through them, and the upkeep on that over the course of twelve months would be exhausting. Whether it’s holiday parties or suffocatingly small family dinners, there’s both a lot to celebrate and a lot to suffer through. Which is why holiday cocktails exist! In the proud Autostraddle holiday tradition we started last year, here are some drinks that we know from experience will serve you well.

+ Spiced Whiskey, from Carolyn
+ Hot Canadian, aka Hot Beaver aka Beaver Surprise aka Hot Toddy from DeAnne Smith
+ Five Loko, from an anonymous donor who is embarrassed by how hard she’s worked to authentically recreate Four Loko
+ Corpse Reviver #2, from Lizz
+ Vegan White Russian, from Jamie

Spiced Whiskey

by Carolyn

Adapted from Design Sponge.

Ingredients:
1 to 1 1/2 cups of apple juice
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg, or a pinch ground nutmeg
2 cloves
a little orange zest
1 cinnamon stick
4 shots of whiskey or to taste/level of desperation

Put the apple juice and spices and zest in a smallish covered saucepan over high heat. Stir. Remove from the heat just as things start to boil.

After the juice and spices have infused for five minutes or until you start getting impatient, add the whiskey. I used four shots of Jameson, but follow your heart, unless your heart is telling you to use Johnny Walker Blue, in which case what is wrong with you, drink that shit neat. If you are going to go fancy with any part of this drink, go fancy with the apple juice, which is best when organic and just a bit pulpy, but still passable when almost expired and marked down to 99 cents. Put everything back on the stove until it looks like it might boil again, and serve.

Hot Canadian

by DeAnne

(aka Hot Beaver aka Beaver Surprise aka Hot Toddy)

Whatcha need:
whiskey
ginger-infused hot water
maple syrup
lemon wedge

Mix these things in some way that pleases your mouth. I wouldn’t be so bold as to suggest your specific taste bud-pleasing ratio. I tend to favor this beverage heavy on the whiskey and heavy on the maple syrup. But that’s just me! Maybe leave out the ginger if you’re not a big fan of ginger. Maybe add some honey instead of maple syrup if you have a sore throat and/or are not rolling in cash and/or love stealing from hardworking bees. Maybe add a cinnamon stick if you like things that taste a little gross. It’s totally up to you! You only have one life! Put as much or as little whiskey in it as feels right! Serve in a mug.

What follows is a partial transcript of the night I attempted to nail down this recipe with three friends.

“That’s pretty tasty.”
“It’s a bit too gingery for me.”
“Really? I don’t taste the ginger at all.”
“But that’s because you’re Asian!”
“I was gonna say that, actually.”
“Guys, it’s not about the ginger! It’s about the whiskey!”
“Do you even know what ginger tastes like?”
“I think it’s perfect.”
“It IS perfect!”
“You wouldn’t add more whiskey?”
“I would.”
“Now you can really taste the whiskey.”
“Isn’t it good?”
“It’s a lot more whiskey-ish now.”
“Oh yeah. That’s got the kick. I’m glad I had the one before that first, though.”
“Should we put stick in the next batch?”
“Stick?”
“Cinnamon stick.”
“Who calls it stick?”
“You know, the traditional English Hot Toddy uses black tea instead of water.”
“Screw the English.”
“Are you seriously adding stick?”
“This is near perfect.”

We took video of the process, and forgot to take pictures. Most of the video I can not share with you. But here’s what happens when you spend a couple of hours trying to perfect a whiskey recipe. You end up giggling in your kitchen, pouring hot drinks into glass. (Not recommended.)

Five Loko

by Anonymous

This drink is a pretty good attempt at making an old-school, now-illegal Four Loko. It’s called Five Loko because it’s made with Five Hour Energy. Drink this as cautiously, as you would Four Loko. This shit gets you fucked. Also, you’ll need a large pitcher.

Ingredients:
Vodka
Three bottles of five hour energy
Three small cans of Red Bulls
Sprite (Or ginger-ale or 7-up or whatever)
One Miller High Life
Cranberry Juice
Pink Champagne
Sweet Tarts

Start by filling a regular pitcher quarter of the way up of the way with vodka. (This should be approximately 1/3 of a handle or 2.5 cups. If the vodka is more or less than this much, fudge the recipe accordingly.) Then add the Five Hour Energys and the three small cans of Red Bull (less Red Bull if the pitcher starts to seem too full). Add in the Miller High Life. Add a cup of Sprite, a cup of cranberry juice and half a cup of pink champagne.

Now take the Sweet Tarts and put them all in a plastic ziplock back. Put another ziplock bag over that ziplock bag. Now using a mallot/hammer/shoe, smash the shit out of the Sweet Tarts. Once the Sweet Tarts are powdery or you get bored, mix them in. It’s okay if some chunks fall to the bottom. Warning: Do not try to be a smartass and use your food processor/nut grinder for this part. The Sweet Tarts are stronger than any natural product and will ruin the shit out of your Cuisinart.

Serve by the shot or very small glass as each shot is about half booze. Party on.

Corpse Reviver #2

by Lizz

Ingredients:
1 oz Gin
1 oz Cointreau (triple sec)
1 oz Lillet Blanc
1 oz Fresh squeezed lemon juice
2 drops of Absinthe
A cherry (it’s cool if it’s soaked in brandy, but nbd)

Traditionally speaking, Corpse Revivers are cocktails for when you have a hangover– a bit of the hair of the dog. The Corpse Reviver #2 was written down during prohibition by Harry Craddock, but (based on the fancy-pants ingredients) is a pre-prohibition cocktail from when everyone drank too much and thought they needed a drink at 8am. In actuality, hair of the dog is the worst plan ever. (Here are some better ideas.) On the bright side, the Corpse Reviver #2 is the most delicious cocktail I’ve ever had that isn’t a dirty martini. Plus, the cherry at the bottom in contrast with the cloudy drink looks awful festive!

Drop the cherry in to the bottom of a martini glass. Swirl the martini glass with a few drops of absinthe. Pour the gin, cointreau, lillet and fresh squeezed lemon juice in to a shaker. Add some ice and shake until your hands are freezing cold. Pour the contents in to the glass over the cherry and absinthe. For an added holiday twist, use grapefruit juice instead of lemon.

Oh! Here’s a video of Rachel Maddow making one!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Vegan White Russian

by Jamie

Fortunately my father has an appreciation for Coen brothers movies, so whenever the holiday get-togethers push the limits of our patience, we often escape to watch one of their gems like Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?, Fargo, or of course The Big Lebowski. In honor of The Dude, take a load off with this Vegan White Russian recipe.

Ingredients:
Two parts vanilla soy milk
One part coffee liqueur (some have cream, so beware)
One part vodka

Mix, pour over ice. Slurp. Enjoy.

For a creamier version, try using the So Delicious Soy Milk Creamer. Also, many coffee liqueurs aren’t vegan, so clean, green, simple has an awesome recipe for how to make your own vegan version of Kahlua without any cream. Walders offers a vodka and vanilla non-dairy liqueur you could buy online if you’re lazy.

Get Toasted: Flaming Cinnamon Martini

Chances are good that you’ll need a spiced, pumpkin-flavored cocktail to get you through at least one event this week, and because I care for you deeply, I created this recipe. You should know upfront that it involves actual fire, which is second only to parkour when it comes to impressing the ladies.

Flaming Cinnamon Martini

For one martini:

A shot and a half of Vanilla Vodka
Shot of creme de cacao
1 Tb Cinnamon Vanilla Cream Coffee Mate
1 Tb Pumpkin Spice Coffee Mate (or to taste)
1 Tsp Cocoa Powder

Shake with ice, a lot!

Pour it into a martini glass! There’s a nifty little flame trick you can do with the cinnamon and I’ve included a demonstration video below. If you’re really fancy, you can toast the cinnamon that has settled on top of the martini.

NOTE: It’s not vegan because Coffee Mate has Sodium Caseinate (a milk derivative) in it. But it is lactose free for those of us “bad vegans.”

What Are You Listening To? There’s a Drink for That.

Lizz’s Team Pick

It happens to everyone: the drink/music mismatch. Maybe you’re at a club dancing to Lady Gaga but for some reason you find yourself enjoying a full bodied Syrah. Maybe, on the other hand, you’re sitting in the dark on the floor of your apartment with your girlfriend and ten cats listening to Al Green and drinking Jagerbombs. It’s just wrong. Luckily, three Bostonians fixed all that at Music Hack Day Boston 2011 with their amazing new website Drinkify. What’s the pitch?

Drinkify automatically generates the perfect* cocktail recipe to accompany any music.

*May not actually be perfect.

That’s right. You type in a musical artist and Drinkify automatically spits out the perfect drink. Now, apparently Drinkify uses The Echo Nest and Last.fm databases to connect genres and tempos with drink types, but as far as I’m concerned this is just magic.

In Defense of Cheap Wine

Rachel’s Team Pick:

A “real journalist” has finally said what all the rest of us secretly know: expensive wine is confusing and weird and pointless, and cheap wine is awesome.There is no shame in drinking it. (Also, in his calculations about price he assumes that you and your significant other are drinking 5 bottles a week, which I appreciate.)

VIA THE URBAN GROCERY

If hints of cassis, subtle earthiness, and jammy notes don’t interest you, you are not a lesser person. Wine is not art. There’s no reason to believe that aligning your tastes with those of a self-appointed elite will enrich your life, or make you more insightful or sensitive. If wine critics want to spend lavishly on the wine they like, that’s great. Leave them to their fun. Be grateful that you can gain just as much pleasure, if not more, without bankrupting yourself… rest assured that cheap wine in the United States is good, to the extent that the term has any objective meaning. Falling market share over the last 15 years has forced discount vintners to compete with upmarket brands, and modern technology has enabled them to crank out consistent wines, case after case. So, if you win your $3 gamble on the first bottle, you know you’ll like the next.

There are, of course, people out there who can afford to buy wine at upwards of $20 a bottle; perhaps some of them even read this website! But let’s be real, you’re going to need some Franzia at Dinah Shore. And I know I haven’t bought any wine that wasn’t marked down at least 40% since, oh, ever. Why feel bad about it, and why pay twice as much? Sometimes it will taste like juice, but hey, there are worse things! How do you feel? What do you drink? How does Manischewitz figure in? I have a lot of questions.

How To Have A Sober Social Life

By Anna North

A lot of social events involve, or even revolve around, alcohol. If you’re sober, or if a friend or date is, this can cause some problems. Luckily, we have some tips for solving them.

Talk to your friends.

I talked to Sacha Scoblic, author of Unwasted: My Lush Sobriety, who recommends an open chat if you or a friend decides to get sober:

Drinkers should […] feel free to talk to the sober person in their lives about his or her limits around alcohol. These aren’t state secrets; these are comfort zones. And everything is more comfortable when its out in the open instead of festering inside (Oh so now we can’t go to a bar anymore? — so lame. Or, Oh so now I have to watch my friends get drunk? — so rude). A chat about this new state of affairs — a friend’s sobriety — will probably end in a hug. Not chatting will end in resentments that only serve to further cleave the friendship.

So if a friend is quitting drinking, feel free to talk to them about how you can support them socially and otherwise. And if you’re the one quitting and you’d like your friends to make adjustments — like, say, meeting up for ice cream rather than beer — bring it up early rather than letting yourself get resentful.

Schedule non-alcoholic fun.

Caren Osten Gerszberg and Leah Odze Epstein of Drinking Diaries offered this advice for sober folks:

Take the lead by suggesting a movie or a play; a game of frisbee or something outdoors. A concert. Something where sitting in a bar or a restaurant drinking is not the focus.

Scoblic agrees:

When the get-together revolves around drinking, I start to focus on what I can’t have, and then I get moody just as everyone else is getting loose and playful. It’s not a great combination. I think the best way to be social with people who meet up at bars is to ask them to meet up at coffee shops, diners, or your apartment instead.

Non-sober friends can help too, she says. Some ideas:

Do shit together. Don’t just hang around drinking and expect to maintain a good friendship with your sober pal. Get out into the world. Eat together. Go to movies. Play games. Take a class. Climb a mountain. Study krav maga. Did I mention eat together? Without a drink in hand, parties, cocktail hours, and bars just feel like standinginterminably.

Serve tasty non-alcoholic drinks.

When I was in college, all parties had to offer EANABs, or Equally Attractive Non-Alcoholic Beverages. This meant you couldn’t have a full bar and, say, tap water — you had to offer some Snapple or Nantucket Nectar or at least a selection of sodas. This is a good rule of thumb for post-college parties as well. Gerszberg and Epstein say,

Make sure to have an assortment of nonalcoholic drinks on hand, not just water. If you’re going to take the time to stock your bar with wine, beer, and countless other choices, make sure you have other options for sober people, like sparkling soda or cranberry juice and seltzer.

They suggest offering some Equally Attractive Non-Alcoholic Activities as well:

Try not to make the entire event or party revolve around booze. If you’re having a cocktail or dinner party, include games where people can be silly without alcohol, like charades, Pictionary, Scrabble, Poker, even Guitar Hero.

Don’t treat your sober friend with kid gloves.

Says Scoblic,

Don’t completely edit your behavior for, say, me just because I’m an alcoholic. Getting wasted in front of your sober buddy is not awesome, but I don’t want to be the reason you’re not having a glass of wine, either. I’m not interested in imposing my psycho mental issues on top of your party, house-warming, or weapons swap. Nor will it help me to feel as though everyone is walking on eggshells for my benefit; I don’t want a big neon sign that reads “SENSITIVE ALCOHOLIC CHICK” swinging over my head every time I enter a room. Look, if you’re having a kegger, obviously I know to expect attending — and then I have to decide if I can handle it or not. Don’t judge me for not coming and don’t hide your beer if I do show up.

For dates, try a coffee shop — or coffee shop/bar.

Booze is a pretty common feature of first dates — as Gerszberg and Epstein say, “everyone seems funnier after a few drinks — and sexier, thanks to beer goggles.” Nonetheless, there are alternatives. They suggest, “If your date wants to meet at a bar and that’s hard for you, you might suggest a cafe instead. If the person insists on a bar, that might be something to note.” Scoblic has a similar idea:

Go to coffee/bars — you know, the kind with old velvet couches and lots of freelancers zoned out on their laptops. Your date gets his or her social lubricant, you don’t feel conspicuous ordering chai, and the noise level is actually conducive to a conversation, unlike an ordinary bar.

Don’t feel like you have to explain yourself for not drinking on a date.

Gerszberg and Epstein say, “Most people don’t want to come right out on a first date and announce that they’re in recovery — probably best to save that for the second or third date.” Luckily, not drinking on a first date doesn’t have to be a huge deal. Says Scoblic,

The thing about sober dating is that it shouldn’t be any different from any other kind of dating. The reason it is different is that we alcoholics get all in our heads about it and go whackadoodle. We do this because, as good addicts, we cannot actually imagine what it is like just to be a social drinker. We immediately assume that if we don’t order a drink, our date will think terrible things about us before we’ve even said a word — like that we’re lame, vanilla, preachy, squares — because that is exactly what we used to think about people who didn’t drink. Your date, however, is presumably not an alcoholic and therefore not as obsessed with this subject as you are. And here’s the thing: A lot of people don’t drink for many reasons (almost all of which this alcoholic finds hard to fathom) — like health, having no taste for it, or Mormonism — and no one gives a good gosh darn. Most of the time, people just aren’t thinking about us as much as we think they are thinking about us (in fact, they’re thinking about what we think of them; it’s a narcissistic round-robin). So: relax, have a club soda, and pretend you’re a health nut — until you can get comfortable with the fact that your lack of an alcoholic beverage is Not a Really Big Deal.

She adds, “If your lack of drinking does bother your date in any way, then consider yourself lucky: You just found out right away not to waste your time.”

While dating and socializing while sober can be scary, and changing your social life to accommodate a sober friend might feel difficult at first, the change can also be enriching. Gerszberg and Epstein suggest,

Where alcohol perhaps was once your jumping-off point to having fun, explore new activities that you may not have tried before: indoor rock climbing, poker. Go to film festivals and concerts with friends. You’d be surprised how many activities don’t revolve around alcohol.

Even if you’re not sober, having a sober friend can spur you to break out of a social rut and try new things. And if you’re the one who’s sober, remember that gaining your friends’ support could help them discover new forms of fun too. Also, support is what friends are for. Says Scolic, “Friends should make you feel good to be around, not anxious. And good friends will want that, too.”

Image via keren-seg/Shutterstock.com

Originally published on Jezebel. Republished WITH PERMISSION MOTHERF*CKERS.

Women Today Are More Drunk Than Ever

By Anna North

New research shows that women born after World War II are more likely to binge-drink than those born in previous decades. Why are ladies getting drunker than they used to?

According to the Huffington Post, a new review of existing research has found that American women born post-1945 have higher rates of binge-drinking than their foremothers, and that women’s rates of overindulgence are approaching men’s. However, the study didn’t find the same effects in Europe or Australia. What’s the explanation for this phenomenon? Addiction therapist Paul Leslie Hokemeyer says, “After World War II, the role of women changed. More women entered the work force, but they were also expected to be good mothers and wives.” So they “latched hold of alcohol as a coping mechanism because it is readily available and socially acceptable.”

It’s possible that women are drinking more because they’ve entered the workforce but are still faced with the stresses of a “second shift” at home. And maybe European women don’t face the same stress because they have better social safety nets. It’s also possible, though, that getting drunk has simply become more acceptable for women in the years since WWII. And while somebody’s sure to claim this is a negative consequence of feminism, it may just be a side effect of increased equality. It’s a good thing if women feel less pressure to be ladylike than they used to, and if they’re able to go out to bars with their friends without being judged. If this leads to binge drinking, that’s not an argument for a return to pre-Rosie the Riveter times. It just means we need to recognize that alcoholics come in all genders, and tailor treatment and screening accordingly.

Binge-Drinking Among Women Is Up: Study [Huffington Post]

Image via REDAV/Shutterstock.com

Originally published on Jezebel. Republished WITH PERMISSION MOTHERF*CKERS.

“You Deserve A Drink” has Alcohol, Puns, Alcohol Puns

Intern Grace’s Team Pick:

Happy weekend! How was your week? Was it rough? Yeah? You deserve a drink. Fortunately for everyone on the planet, there’s a YouTube channel for that.

A three-minute rundown of pop culture and alcohol recipes, “You Deserve A Drink” is a weekly webshow hosted by Mamrie Hart (presumably no relation to my/everyone’s love interest Hannah Hart, but like, weird, right?). Edited by Grace Helbig of “Daily Grace,” the show is shrill, over-the-top and about seven kinds of awesome. Each episode, Mamrie picks a prominent figure from entertainment news and teaches you how to make a special drink in their honor, like Charlie Sheen’s Tiger Blood Gimlet or Big Boi’s Hey Yacht, in addition to celebrating alcohol-idays like Mother’s Day. My favorite video is Harry Potter’s Flaming Butterbeer because I want to punch her every time I hear her make a pun on “quidditch,” but it’s just so clever, you know?

My friends who have made these drinks said that they’re really good, especially if you want to get really drunk really fast. The show even has “a built in drinking game”: take a drink for every horrible pun she makes. You guys, she averages about five puns per minute, depending on the video. I mean, really. It’s like she does this just for you.