To the professional beer drinker, there is no denying that draft beer is superior tasting to it’s bottled or canned alternative. The only downside is typically access or rather the convenience of obtaining draft beer. While I highly recommend getting a keg for your tailgate, it’s not always practical. Be it the size of your crowd or legal/campus restrictions. Luckily, the rise of the craft beer movement in the US has also brought about the growler renaissance. A growler is typically a half gallon (64 oz) glass container that allows you to get draft beer to go. The immediate benefit is obviously the ability to drink sweet wonderful nectar of the gods draft beer while not being reliant upon a bar/keg. If you’re looking for another justification, the reusable glass bottles are environmentally friendly.

Once filling up your growler, it should stay fresh if unopened for easily a week. Once opening, I suggest keeping that baby cold and finishing it within about 48 hours to maintain good carbonation. Filling up your growler on a Friday and drinking it on Saturday before kickoff is not a shabby way to pregame. If you don’t want to throw it in your cooler you could also pick up an Insulated Beer Growler Bag. Below I’ve included some places around the South where you can pick up a growler before the game. If you have a favorite local fill up station please let us know in the comments.

Athens, GA: The Beer Growler
Atlanta, GA: Hop City
Birmingham, AL: Highland Package
Columbia, SC: Green’s
Fayetteville, AR: Hog Haus
Gainesville, FL: Tipple’s Brews
Lexington & Louisville, KY: Liquor Barn
Knoxville, TN: Bearden Beer Market
Nashville, TN: Midtown Beer & Cigar Store

Folks in Mississippi appear to be battling Johnny Law but can join the fight. All I could find in Louisiana was the Abita Brew Pub. But based on drinking laws in that state, I’m sure just about anywhere would fill up a growler.

A local sports bar in Atlanta has a cocktail called The Tailgater that contains “Grey Goose Orange, Coconut Rum, Peach Schnapps, Pineapple, and a splash of Cranberry”.  This is absurd.  First of all, a tailgating drink recipe shouldn’t contain more than three ingredients.  And those ingredients shouldn’t be totally devoid of anything manly.

The last couple of years has brought on the emergence of “Sweet Tea Vodka” and when it’s mixed with lemonade is called a John Daly. But I still haven’t a heard a name stick for adding bourbon to an Arnold Palmer. So I humbly suggest The Tailgater. It combines four favorites of Southern fans: Football, Bourbon, Sweet Tea, and Lemonade. Not a bad drink to take the edge off hot September games either.

The Tailgater Recipe

In a plastic Solo cup filled with ice add the following then stir and garnish with a lemon. You can also favor the sweet tea more than the lemonade in the proportion.

2 oz Buffalo Trace Bourbon (roughly the bottom indention of the cup)
5 oz Sweet Tea
5 oz Lemonade

There are few things more satisfying than taking a shot then chucking the glass to the floor to break it. Unfortunately, it can either get expensive or get you kicked out of the bar. Here to soften the burden is the Fred Cool Shooters Shot Glass Mold. The mold can produce four shot glasses made of wonderful disposable ice. Throw a few batches worth in your cooler and then enjoy one quick shot at the tailgate before heading to the game. No clean up and no worries. Plus you get to see the faces of your horrified tailgating neighbors as they believe you’re breaking glass all over campus. At $8 you certainly get your money’s worth.

This website won’t make a habit of recommending products from Urban Outfitters. And I’ll also concede that this product is more about winning laughs while tailgating than easily sneaking liquor into a game. But nonetheless hipster college football fans, I present the mustache flask.

I can’t find any information about them online, but Budweiser cans now have red tabs with a crown shape in the middle. I’m digging it.

Gloves, hats, and layers will certainly warm your body during a cold weather tailgate, but who can afford gore tex? I suggest getting some hot liquid and liquor in one’s belly. And to that cause, it doesn’t get much easier and tastier than hot bourbon cider. You can heat up the cider on a camp stove and then pour it into a mug with bourbon. Sprinkle some ground cloves on top and then add a cinnamon stick. If it’s 30° and 7am on a Saturday morning you might as well try to stay warm and drunk.

1.5 oz Bourbon
6oz Hot Apple Cider
Ground Cloves
Cinnamon Stick

The following is a guest post by Hardy&NickersonLLP. If you would like to submit a post, send it to nixforsix@drunkentailgate.com

Frisaba la edad de nuestro hidalgo con los cinquenta años; era de complexión recia, seco de carnes, enjuto de rostro, gran madrugador y amigo de la caza. — Miguel de Cervantes 1605

Shotgunning Irish Style: A 12 Step Program

While a seasoned pro can make it look simple, shotgunning a beer is no task for amateurs. Beneath the precise veneer of any veteran performance lie the years of practice and dedication that separate the accomplished shotgunner from the neophyte. Fear not, however. Any man who truly understands the art of shotgunning is eager to teach the younger generation and thereby preserve the legacy of the ancients. Follow these steps and you will live to disgust girls, horrify parents, and earn the respect of your peers. Follow these steps to eternal greatness.

1. Be punctual. Arriving with the sun is a fundamental part of quality tailgating. It’s never too early in the day to recommence drinking, though even the all-time greats sometimes roll over questioning their ability to get back in the saddle after a late Friday night. As you roll out of bed and leave the dorm wearing whatever you woke up in anyway, consider the fact that at dawn you are still pretty much drunk. View this as a good thing. You are starting the race three steps ahead of all of the candy-asses who took it easy last night. Don’t be like them. They’re the same people who aren’t going to have an open bar at their weddings. Instead get thee to the nearest parking lot or grassy field and start drinking. You’ll be comfortably buttered after four beers. Your lame colleagues will emerge from their respective beauty rests around nine. The ones who sat out last night’s festivities will have a ways to go to catch up, while those who went hard last night but chickened out this morning will have to fight the very hangover that you didn’t give your body enough time to develop. Good thinking on your part.

2. Unite the clans. Gather as many friends as possible and form a loose circle. Remember the words of Lee Boyd Malvo who said, “He who will not shotgun with friends is a friend to no one.” Let everyone know this when you start to hear the excuses. Observe as they relent and gather their beers. A higher rate of participation betters the chances of the Irish humiliating yet another unsuspecting opponent.

3. Be economical. Understanding the modern sport of shotgunning, the CEO of each major brewery has established at least one shotgunning beer and offered said beer at prices that are reasonable for the young binge drinker. Coors has Keystone Light. Miller has the High Life. And of course the fine folks at Budweiser have graciously sent us Natty Light. Beyond the Big Three there are countless other brands of discount beer that make for economical yet tasty shotgunning. Among the craftsmen of these proud products are Hammes, Pabst, Schlitz, Stroh’s, and anyone who sells beer that comes in a case of thirty. These beers were meant to be guzzled not savored and there’s nothing wrong with that. Plus, with the money you have left over, you can buy extra bratwurst.

4. Getting on with it. Now that you’ve arrived, gathered your pals, and grabbed yourself a frothy discount beverage, it is time for business. Do not stray from these rules unless of course you choose to substitute the word “tooth” for the word “key.”

A) Being careful not to shake your beer, take the can and hold it horizontally with the tab facing towards you.
B) Making sure that the top of the unopened tab faces 12 o’clock, tilt the conventional drinking end down towards the ground, so that your beer sits at roughly a 30-degree angle from the earth’s surface. The purpose of this move is to allow a pocket of air to form near what used to be the bottom of the can.
C) Gripping the sharpest key on your chain (car keys seem to work better than dull door keys and canines better than molars, as it were) as if it were a pencil, authoritatively but compassionately puncture the aluminum on the side of the can roughly one inch from the end of the can. It is important not to stab too hard in order to minimize spillage.
D) Inevitably a rush of air and some liquid will escape no matter how accomplished a shotgun matador you are. Don’t worry about this; it is a sad fact of the tailgater’s life. Think of incidental spills the same way you would the moment when a pregnant woman’s water breaks: on the one hand you never want to see it actually happen but on the other you know that it’s an integral part of a miraculous process.
E) As you curse and scoff at your friends who have haphazardly allowed beer to shoot from their cans, drive your key in beyond the initial puncture site and cut a thumb-sized semicircle in your beer. It is completely within the realm of proper etiquette to call your friends names when they mess up a shotgun. It’s a part of being a team leader. Spillers make the rest of us look bad. Plus, as you get closer and closer to game time this task becomes much more physically difficult, so you too will spill at an increasingly unacceptable rate. Being the first one to yell at someone else is a legitimate way to divert attention from your own ineptitude. If you are the first one to be yelled at, simply take it like a man and tell everyone to fuck off.
F) When the yelling stops, offer your keys to the guy who brought no keys. At this point everyone should yell at him both for forgetting keys and for the poor quality of his stab no matter how good a stab it is.
G) While still shouting, use your thumb to depress the section of aluminum that you’ve outlined with your key. The result of said depression is the shotgunner’s drinking surface. This is your friend. You are almost there.

5. A solemn blessing. When the dust has settled and everyone is holding a disfigured beer can, some brave soul must step into the center and say a few meaningful words. No speech topic is off limits. It is standard procedure to say some derogatory words about the opponent at the end of any speech, but football should not necessarily be the overriding theme of a shotgun speech. If you can’t think of anything to say, just open your mouth and God will speak through you.

6. Sinking in. If you just spoke, step back into your place in the arc of the circle. If you didn’t speak, congratulate the speaker on his thoughtful speech. It’s tough for some people to speak from the heart like he just did.

7. A Last-Minute Adjustment. Before the main event, make sure that your beer is now sitting in your hands parallel to the ground with the opening facing the sky and the top of the yet unsealed tab still facing twelve o’clock. With your elbows at your side and arms bent at the elbow, the tab side of the beer should be in your right hand (unless you’re a lefty) with the opened end in your left hand (or again vice versa). It is proper to sneak the index finger of your tab-side hand into position to quickly pop the tab when the time comes. Additionally, it is important to note that the tab is a delicate entity. As such, be sure not to crack open the beer prematurely. Neither girls nor society as a whole like that.

8. Countdown. A simple “3,2,1…Go!” is perfectly okay. “Ready, set, go!” is fine too. Singing the fight song and then going is great and is required by law in the two hours immediately preceding kickoff. However, there is a word for people who go only after simulating the twirling motion that girls do during a kickoff. That word is “fag.”

9. La deluge. When you hear the word “Go,” go. Exhale sharply and in one fluid motion move the key-drilled opening to your mouth while popping the tab with your index finger. If you’ve followed each step to this point, the air pocket should shift towards the traditional drinking end, which will now sit at the can’s highest point. This minimizes spillage and maximizes the effect of gravity once the vacuum effect wears off. Though at this point you are too busy inhaling your beer to notice your surroundings, your buddy who stabbed opposite the tab is now covered with beer that spilled out as soon as he popped the tab. He is a dumbass and now both girls at your tailgate think him a complete d-bag for failing to familiarize himself with this manual.

10. The drinking. Since you exhaled at the word, “Go,” your body will instinctively gasp for air as soon as possible. If your mouth opens to a flood of beer, you will quickly down said beer. Don’t think, just let your body do the work and, for God’s sake, keep inhaling through your mouth until you taste oxygen once more. (N.B. One of several occupational hazards faced by the shotgunner is the possibility of the beer entering his windpipe instead of his stomach. Don’t worry about this. The worst thing that can happen is that you drown in beer. There is honor in such a death, especially when it comes on the morning of a rivalry game.)

11. The aftermath. Once the beer has moved from the can to your throat, spike the empty can on the ground and stomp it with your foot. Stomp the hell out of it. Claim to have “won,” or shotgunned your beer the fastest. Speed is at a premium in shotgunning. Thus it is okay to declare yourself the winner. No one keeps score of such matters, but that is no reason not to talk shit, especially to any opposing fan that happens to walk by your tailgate.

12. Back in the saddle. Repeat steps 4-11 at half-hour intervals or more frequently until game time.

(photo by kberkopes)

There are times when a Solo Cup is just not the right fit. After a particularly kick ass win, a deserving gentleman may desire a Victory Whiskey. And depending on the quality of said bourbon or scotch, the taste of plastic may sully the whole experience. So why not drop $100 plus on a set of four glasses with leather koozies from Col. Littleon. It will prevent your hand from heating the glass, cuts down on the chances of the glass breaking, and makes your accompanying victory cigar look all the more regal. After all, it’s not everyday that you blow out Louisiana Monroe.

(HT: Distilled & Select)

We recently wrote a post called Beer Kegs 101 that was designed to give an overview and some tips on using a keg at your tailgate. If that was the introductory lesson, than the 58 page .pdf Draught Beer Quality Manual is your graduate course. It covers the science and engineering of kegs as well as practical use and cleaning. Below are a couple of examples of what you can find inside.

Different Sizes and Types of Kegs

Different types of Keg Taps and what Beers Use them

fried gator

Cherokee Distributing has a post with some standard tailgating tips. But most importantly they supplied a sample tailgating menu based on their opponent’s local fare and/or mascots. This is a good example of how you can diversify your offerings beyond fried chicken, burgers, etc.

You can also pick food styles and beverages that fit your tailgate whether they celebrate the home team or represent your opponent. That way you can try new things and enjoy some variety throughout the season. Here are some festive menu ideas for the first five big games the Vols will face this season:

• Sept. 11 – vs. Oregon – in Knoxville – When the Ducks come to town, face the challenge head on by preparing grilled duck breast. To top it off, serve with Duck-Rabbit Amber Ale.
• Sept. 18 – vs. Florida – in Knoxville – There’s only one thing to serve when playing the University of Florida, and that’s fried Gator tail. In celebration of the Orange and Blue crew coming to town, sip on a Blue Moon garnished with an orange slice.
• Oct. 2 – vs. LSU – in Baton Rouge, La. – Whether you travel down to Louisiana or enjoy the game from home, the LSU showdown calls for a celebration of Cajun food. Prepare some spicy jambalaya – a yummy, hearty tailgating dish – and serve it with Abita Purple Haze, brewed in Abita Springs, just north of New Orleans.
• Oct. 9 – vs. Georgia – in Athens, Ga. – When the Vols play the Bulldogs, it’s a classic rivalry that calls for a classic tailgating staple: hotdogs. But, why not mix it up and serve “Sloppy Dawgs” – in honor of how you may hope the opposing team will play! And with new UT Head Coach Derek Dooley returning to his hometown to coach against his law school alma mater – and where his dad Vince Dooley was legendary football coach for 25 years – pick up the Shiner Family Reunion variety pack for the occasion.
• Oct. 23 – vs. Alabama – in Knoxville – When the Crimson Tide rolls in to Tennessee, it’s time to break out the barbeque. If you want to sample authentic Tide fare, order some Dreamland Bar-b-que sauce from the Tide’s hometown of Tuscaloosa. But, if you want to stay loyal to Big Orange Country, try the delicious sauces from local restaurants Calhoun’s, Sweet P’s BBQ and Soul House, Buddy’s bar-b-q or Dead End BBQ. Enjoy the southern staple with Twisted Tea Hard Iced Tea, a fun twist on the South’s favorite drink.

(photo by jasonlam)