The Drunken Tailgate

Tailgating Tool – Etón Scorpion

There are two vastly different types of tailgating. Tailgating with a car and without. Due to parking or airplane travel you are sometimes left with just the bare necessities (beer and tickets) and your car nowhere in sight. It seems like the new Scorpion by Etón could be a huge help when you have to scale things down. This handheld device is powered by either it’s solar panels or the integrated hand crank. The digital tuning AM/FM radio, NOAA Weather Band, Flashlight, audio input to use as ipod speaker, bottle opener, and cell phone charger are all features that can be helpful tailgating before the game. And being able to pick up the radio broadcast or recharge your phone inside the game would also be clutch. The Scorpion should cost around $50. A little bulky for the average pocket at 5.25” x 2.5” x 1.75 but this nifty product comes with a carabiner clip and only weighs 8.5 oz.

How to Pimp Your Tailgating Grill

Let’s say you needed a semi-disposable grill. Much like the $80 tailgating canopy, you might be looking for a tailgating grill in the same price range that you halfway expect to get broken or stolen. So you go to Home Depot and drop $100 on the Brinkman – 2 Burner Gas Grill. And after a couple of uses you realize that the two stock wheels aren’t getting the job done. And where the hell are you supposed to put your beer and cigar when you’ve got plates and tools sitting on the small built-in tables? Well the answer is to pimp your grill like ELYK Innovations. They added two more wheels and a beer and cigar holder that doubles as another place to hang tools. Check their site for details. Before and After:

Beer Pong for Charity

In theory the Portopong table makes sense. It’s easy to transport and could open the game up for playing in a pool. But personally I have a problem with any beer pong table that has fitted cup holders. It simply makes the game too easy. Heavy cups or slotted positions make the sides of the playing cups too rigid and thus simple to make a shot. So I’m giving it a no dice for tailgating purposes. If you were playing in a pool or lake this advantage would cancel out the movement of the table due to waves. Though we haven’t personally tried out this product we’re mentioning them here because if you purchase one of their pink tables they will donate $5 to the Keep A Breast Foundation. The tables are $50.

Drunkenness Sells Out

We’ve talked about disposable flasks before, and I think they are a great way to sneak alcohol into games. They can be concealed better than most flasks and they will easily pass through a metal detector. But what am I to make of the fact that Restoration Hardware now sells their own line of sneak-it-in disposable flasks? They cost twice as much as the original, but is that really a concern when your already dropping $260 for a model car or $60 for fake Chuck Taylor low tops. I guess we should expect Home Depot to start selling pre-made beer funnels and iTunes to start listing Power Hour mixes.

(HT: uncrate)

Drink Like a Champ: Das Boot

Unfortunately, we didn’t find out if this Georgia girl knew to turn the boot and make sure she didn’t spill. If you want to impress random tailgaters who also loved Beerfest you can pick up a 67oz. Glass Beer Boot from Amazon for just $25 (and add the DVD for $10 more).

The BoomCooler: Stereo Cooler

I see a lot of crazy tailgating gear on the web. Some of the ideas are ingenious, some are good but not my cup of tea, and still others are just one heaping pile of suckitude. The BoomCooler is one of the dumber items of tailgating gear I’ve ever come across. If the name or a casual glance at the product lead you to believe this is a cooler/stereo combination, then you’ve made a logical but ultimately wrong assumption. You see the…

“BoomCooler™ is not intended for wet storage – Tell your friends to bring an extra cooler with drinks and you will BRING THE PARTY!”

So the BoomCooler is in fact an amplifier, three speakers, and a lawnmower battery that are built into a cooler molding. I don’t want be presumptuous and speak for all tailgaters though. If you happen to have an extra $500, have friends who bring you beer, need more volume than an iPod dock provides, have an abundance of cargo room in your car, and want to roll a 100 pound rig around campus, then the BoomCooler is the right product for you.

Key Shaped Bottle Opener for Your Keychain

I’ve noticed a certain stigma associated with college grads who still have bottle openers on their keychains. Yet, post-college is when you can actually afford to drink imports and need an opener. Somehow, having a circular bottle opener with a college logo on it became the mid-twenties equivalent of wearing a high school letterman’s jacket as a college freshman. Sneaky drinkers avoided becoming outcasts by keeping a credit card shaped opener in their wallet. But now there is a more practical solution that doesn’t draw attention to itself. The Brewzkey is a key shaped bottle opener and one hell of an idea. I’ve had several people use this opener and everyone opened their beer with ease. I’ve been using this discrete opener for the last few weeks and I couldn’t be happier with it. You can grab a Brewzkey from Amazon for just $3.79 and I highly recommend it. Below you will find a quick video clip of the Brewzkey in action.

Vortex Portable Mixers

Woot is currently having a sale on Vortex Portable Mixers. These are basically an 18oz battery powered portable blender. For $14.99 you get two of them (the other two places I saw online sell one for $14.99). Seems like there would be a ton of uses for this tailgating. Either in the frozen drink realm or for mixing ingredients for on site cooking.

If you’re not familiar with Woot, they offer items on sale for only one day or until they sell out. After the day is up, you can’t get them from their site anymore. They also don’t take returns. It’s a quick transaction but they usually offer pretty big discounts. I’ve bought a few items and never had a problem.

For more information on the mixers themselves check out the Vortex site.