The Drunk Pirate

Since the very beginning, The Drunk Pirate has been dedicated to the drinking lifestyle.

Beer, liquor, malt beverages, drinking games—pretty much anything that gets you crunk. But there’s always been a not so glamorous side to the drinking lifestyle. It’s a side we’ve all encountered but love to forget. We call them hangovers, and they’re a fact of life. Like your ex-girlfriend getting knocked up by some toolbag after you break up, it’s not a matter of if it’s going to happen, it’s a matter of damage control.

For this reason, we’ve come to accept hangovers, much like we’ve come to accept little Toolbag Jr. when we inevitably get back together with the ex-girlfriend. Sure we all develop our own little rituals to deal with hangovers. We’ve even covered some of our favorites in a previous hangover posts. But that doesn’t mean we have to stop searching for something better.

Enter drinkwel, the multivitamin for healthy people that drink.

The concept seemed simple enough. A specially formulated alcohol nutrition supplement that provides short-term relief and long-term support against the negative effects of alcohol. Bold words for what sounds like a hyped up multi-vitamin. But with a money-back, feel healthier guarantee, it was worth a shot.

The instructions said to take 3 capsules daily with food and water, and to take 3 additional capsules with water before bed if drinking. This seemed like a hell of a lot of capsules to me, so I bent the rules a bit. On Monday, after a particularly long day in the office, I started my routine of 2 capsules a day to get prepared for the weekend. By Friday, it appeared the placebo effect was in full swing as I had convinced myself that I had more energy than usual. It was time for a reality check and to see what this drinkwel stuff was all about. I had to be up early on Saturday to meet a friend for some kayaking. So that Friday I drank myself under the table and skipped my usual 4th meal in favor of three drinkwel capsules and a lemon-lime Gatorade. Six hours later, I was kicked back in a bright yellow two-seater kayak drinking a Four Loko, feeling like a champ. By all accounts it appeared drinkwel had done its job.

But even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once and a while. To really push it to the limit, I made sure to hit all my favorite drinking holes that night for a second round of testing. The next morning, after a full night’s rest I was still feeling like a champ. Now I don’t know if a couple days of heavy drinking are enough to hand over the hangover cure title to drinkwel, but with each passing hangover-free weekend, it’s getting harder to deny the apparent health effects of drinkwel when applied to the drinking lifestyle.

If interested, check out their site at drinkwel.com

Popularity: 3% [?]

Steel Reserve – 67 percent of the time, it works every time. However, at 12% ABV, Earthquake High Gravity Lager will get you “tore out the frame” 100 percent of the time.

Earlier tonight I made my way to the BP station – not to buy gas mind you (Fuck BP) -  to buy my go-to 4 pack of Steel Reserve tall boys when I made a startling discovery. On the shelf below all the gaudy Four Loko cans, nestled right NEXT to the Steel Reserve was a line of silver and black cans with “Earthquake” emblazoned in red on them.

I didn’t pay them much mind at first. I actually picked up a flavor of Four Loko that I hadn’t tried yet and was studying it when I noticed out of my peripheral that the Earthquake can shared the same 12% ABV rating as the foul-tasting Four Loko I had in my hand.

Could it be? A lager with the kick of a malt liquor? It was like I had found an actual Liger, but instead of being bred for its skills in magic, this one had been bred for its skills in getting me totally shitfaced while NOT tasting like an orange Airborne tablet dissolved in kerosene.

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Popularity: 3% [?]

Last Summer I stumbled onto something that revolutionized hot weather drinking. FireFly Vodka pulled vodka out of the “Give me some Fris Vodka so I can warm up and stop freezing my nads off” category and planted it firmly into the “Drink it out of a Mason jar while watching fourth of July fireworks” category.

“For those of you still trying to figure out that analogy, here’s the Cliffs Notes: Firefly Vodka made a spirit normally reserved for cold weather and made it acceptable to drink in the middle of Summer.”
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Popularity: 3% [?]

I’ve never felt strongly either way about Sam Adams beer. I’ve always viewed their normal fare as so so and not worth the $7.89 price it commands for a sixer. However, I have become a fan of their seasonal beers. Actually I’ve become a fan of seasonal beers in general, but Sam Adams definitely caught my eye with their Winter Lager.
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Popularity: 7% [?]

For most of my life I’ve been able to maintain a relatively good physique by eating and drinking whatever I wanted just as long as I made a concerted effort to go to the gym at least twice a week. Most of my life.

As my early twenties became my late twenties, I began to notice I was buying my pants and shorts on different racks than before. 32’s gave way to 34’s and by the time I was 30 I was in a 36″ waist. WTF? I hadn’t changed the way I did anything in more than 10 years.

Several months ago – at nearly 32-years-old -  I had what most alcoholics refer to as a moment of clarity. My body was changing the way it processed everything I put into it as my metabolism began to slow. It had also begun to view my half-hearted attempts in the gym with a  general malaise matched only by Stephen Hawking if he were to watch a 5th-grade algebra lecture.
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Popularity: 13% [?]