A few months ago my buddy Jeremy and I made it a mission to find a bar we could call our own. We’re both graduates of the University of Florida and if there’s one thing college taught us, it’s having a place to knock a few cold ones back on Friday night is a requirement. By the way, Jeremy is the one who introduced The Drunk Pirate to Firefly vodka for all you fans out there. But I digress.

If you’ve read my Top 15 Ways to Save Money When Going Out, then you know that finding and building a solid relationship with your bartender is the key to strong drinks and prompt service all night. Well, following my guidelines we have indeed solidified ourselves as regulars and now enjoy some of the strongest, longest lasting drinks at the bar thanks to our two oh-so-favorite bartenders Matt and Meredith. Our recent accomplishment has convinced me that people need to know more about the people that put the happy in happy hour. Here are some answers to frequently asked bartender questions.

What tricks do bartenders use to cheat lousy customers?

Auto-gratuity – Many under-appreciated bartenders will turn to the auto-grat button on the cash register to ease the pain of dealing with an especially annoying customer. By automatically charging them gratuity, knowing they’ll be too drunk to notice when they go to pay, the bartender can usually guarantee a respectable tip from even the stingiest jackass.

A$$hole Tax – Run your mouth too much and that $10 Long Island might go up a dollar or five as the night wears on. Knowing that you have no idea how much a drink costs anyway, the bartender overprices the drink and pockets the difference.

Watered Down Drinks – The easiest way for a bartender to own a lousy customer is to make sure the H20 content of his or her drink is kept sufficiently high—ensuring that his or her fun level stays sufficiently low.

Oops All Gone – Sorry, all we had left was Patron—that’ll be your first born son please.

What’s a bartender’s least favorite type of customer?

1. People who snap their fingers – Nothing says please ignore me, I’m a jackass and will likely be a stingy, whiny, pompous jerk when you finally do come over here like someone snapping their fingers.

2. The guy at the bar who thinks he’s the only one who needs a drink – There’s 25 people all waiting to get a drink and all this guy can do is keep yelling out “I need a drink down here!”

3. People who order Amstel Light – You can’t be serious.

4. The guy who orders one drink followed by 6 waters and a napkin – There are people climbing on the ceiling to get another drink and then there’s this guy taking up two seats at the bar—one for himself, the other for all his damn napkins and water glasses.

5. People who don’t have the money ready. – It’s like showing up to a sorority formal without an industrial-size box of condoms—mistakes will be made and consequences will follow.

6. Whiny girls who order twenty cosmos and tip a dollar. – Sorry sweetie. Not even your boyfriend is willing to put up with that kind of treatment without a little payment.

Drinks that will get you laughed at:

1. Fuzzy Navel – Unless you’re a 17-year-old girl with a fake ID, that’s just embarrassing (The Drunk Pirate does not support underage drinking, because that’s just less alcohol for us).

2. Buttery Nipple – Repeat after me. “Just because it sounds funny doesn’t mean you should order it.” This rule also applies to Jägerbombs.

3. Michelob Ultra – Save your dignity and just a order a water with extra lemon—pansy.

4. Sex on the Beach – Like the act it’s named after, this drink is only a good idea in theory.

5. Red Head Slut – As if the name wasn’t warning enough.

6. Anything Blue – Do you really want to start down this path?

7. Anything Pink – The only people I should see carrying around a pink drink are sorority girls and Care bears. And if I’m seeing Care bears, then I had waay too much blue in my drink to begin with.

8. Anything that takes more than 30 seconds to make – Anything taking longer than 30 seconds to make and the bartender is just making shit up as he goes.

What’s the best way to get your bartender’s attention?

1. Call their name – Not to be confused with calling them a name.

2. Smile and make eye contact – Unless you’re a single guy over 50—then you’re just going to creep everyone out.

3. Look sad and in desperate need of a drink – Good alternative to the smile and make eye contact for the single and over 50 crowd.

4. Hold up some dollar dollar bills – The key here is more than one.

James also wanted me to make a note for all our fans out there that this is post number 100. So if you haven’t read the 99 posts before this one, well then get on it, because at this rate it’ll be another 3 years before we make it through the next 100.

        

I’ve tasted the watermelon-flavored Four Loko and it tasted almost completely, but not entirely unlike pink battery acid. The Four Loko orange blend however, tastes a little more like a reputable street whore worth spending your money on.

It’s a little lighter with not so much of the bite as its pink whore of a sister counterpart. It actually tastes a lot like Sunkist with some vodka or 151 mixed in it. Which is great if you’re into that kind of internal S&M liver-destroying thing.

But seriously, the overall taste was more than tolerable and the effect of the 12 percent alcohol content on my writing ability was more than negligible on the positive side. In case you’re as drunk as me that means it made me a more suave and debonair writer for at least an hour or two.

I do however have one gripe…2.fucking99? Are you serious?! This stuff should be no more than $1.99 . Granted one or two cans will get you shit-housed but it isn’t like a pill that’s had $300 million spent on marketing on it. I don’t know. Maybe if it were a Friday night and I had a few of these in me I might think differently. But It’s not and I don’t. So $2.99 is too much for this flavor of Four Loko. Youd probably be better off buying a 1.75 of Popov Vodka for $6.99 vodka and 3 liter of warm orange soda from the Quickee Mart for $.99. Basically the same thing.

        

Some of the greatest food and beverage discoveries were born out of either necessity or just good old fashioned curiosity. I mean seriously, who was the first guy to eat an oyster? Was it out of necessity to avoid starvation that he decided to eat the giant snot-like creature he found living in a rock he found growing in the mud of a coastal saltwater marsh, or was it a decision born of blatant human curiosity to see if he could eat the same stuff the otters were eating?

Either way, people have been eating, drinking and mixing things – that arguably should or should not go together – since the beginning of time.

That being said, one of my favorite things in the world is a good black and tan. You may recall another post I did some time ago, where out of necessity, I mixed together Natty Light and Steel Reserve to create what I called The Poor Man’s Black and Tan. Yes the original PMBT was created out of necessity due in part that I had been drinking and couldn’t drive myself to the store to retrieve the materials for a proper Black and Tan.

The newest iteration of the PMBT however, was the culmination of centuries of the aforementioned human curiosity. In other words I had some Steel Reserve and a bottle of Yuengling Black and Tan and I wanted to see what would happen if I mixed the two.

As I reached in my freezer I opted not for my usual vintage A&W Dog n Suds mug, but rather for my 32 oz Cheers mug I stole from the Cheers bar in the Cincinnati airport on my honeymoon.

Assuming the Yuengling was the heaviest of the two, I poured it in first. I tried my best to use a big wooden spoon to marry the two in such a fashion as to render a distinct line of separation but now in retrospect think that a nice metal spoon would have been a better choice since the coarse wood caused more mixing by the roughly flowing beer than it prevented.

Once both bottle and can had been emptied, what I was left with almost completely but not entirely resembled a genuine black and tan. There was a separation between the two which obviously could have been made more apparent with a little more patience and the proper equipment (as stated earlier) and there was a nice head of foam.

I was amazed at the utter beauty of the cross-bred brew I had created but didn’t expect what came next.

It tasted AMAZING!

I’m not kidding. The Steel Reserve lightened the Yuengling Black and Tan up while the Yuengling B&T took away the bitterness and overall skunkiness of the Steel Reserve. I even tested it on my wife before telling her what it was and she said she really liked it. And as with any Steel Reserve creation it pack enough punch that after two I even thought Dane Cook was funny.

I can say with all honesty that I’ll be drinking this version of the Poor Man’s Black and Tan on a regular basis. Try it for yourself and tell me what you think. If you can actually get it to separate nicely, take a picture and send it in and I’ll post it on the site.

        

I’m going to assume since none of these people look like they know each other that these 40 photos were taken on 40 different nights hence the name, 40 Nights of Drunk.

And yes I know there are some pictures taken in the daytime. Work with me here. Or at least send me in your drunk pictures to james@thedrunkpirate.com. I might send you some free stuff.

[View with PicLens]

        

I’m pretty sure that this is a first for the alcohol industry. An infused, infused vodka. I don’t even know the proper way to write that. Is it infused-infused vodka?

although I usually leave the flavored vodkas to the sorority girls, my instincts told me I needed to try the new Firefly flavors in the name of The South, journalism and science.

Would it be a complete abomination like all the other flavor infused vodkas? Would it tarnish the reputation of a brand destined for greatness? Or would it be the proverbial icing on the cake?

Firefly released four flavors. Raspberry (which until now I never realized there was a P in raspberry), Mint, Lemon and Peach. First up to bat was the raspberry.

The first thing I found was there’s really no discernible raspberry smell to the vodka. Now I knew from experience original Firefly wasn’t really a vodka to drink straight. It’s kind of like drinking a shot of actual sweet tea before you add water and sugar to dilute it. This version was no different. The strong undiluted tea flavor was to overpowering for me to make out even the slightest nuance of raspberries.

I decided to try adding some water but it just didn’t seem to do the trick like with regular firefly. I then decided it was time to go Spiked Arnold Palmer on its ass and mixed it half and half with some Simply Orange Lemonade.

Jackpot.

The taste hearkened me back to my days at Applebee’s when the raspberry tea flowed like wine when northerners who flocked to Disneyland like the salmon of Capistrano ordered it by the gallons.

It tasted as good, if not better, than the original Firefly Spiked Arnold Palmer. The thing is the raspberry isn’t overpowering. The fact that this is sweet tea vodka still takes center stage in the taste. The raspberry comes into play more in the aftertaste than anything else. The one thing I wish I would have tried was making a Daily Palmer.

It’s like your drinking it and thinking, “Man this is good sweet tea,” then after you swallow and exhale you get just a hint of the raspberry that almost seems to cleanse your palette for the next sip.

The funny thing is this flavored vodka makes a great digestif. Which for those of you who are drunk means, ” Is a great after dinner drink.” The first night I tried it was after I had a great grilled rib eye and was full as a tick. This is actually one of the few liquors that are good to drink on these hot and humid Florida nights.

The Verdict

Unlike all the other infused vodkas, Firefly Raspberry definitely has a place in my collection. Since my first taste I’ve spent several afternoons on my back porch watching the sun settle behind the trees while drinking Raspberry Firefly Vodka. Firefly also has a pretty cool new site that you can check out to get stuff like recipes and cool gear.

        

Ok. First let me say I’m sorry. I realize I’ve been as useless as tits on a boar hog when it comes to being a contributing member of the drinking society. I realize I haven’t written a single post since March. I’ve been busy. And so has Nate.

We’ve both had some other projects we’ve been working on but can now redirect our efforts back to The Drunk Pirate. Our readership has dwindled down from more than 100,000 to about 25,000 per month. Thank you to those who have stuck around. Your diligence will be rewarded.

We’ve got some good stuff lined up for you guys. We’ve been drinking our asses off and have actually been brewing our own beer. We’ve also had the pleasure of being given first tastes of several soon-to-be-released liquors.

You should also be on the lookout for a complete redesign of the site along with some freebie stuff in the newsletter (for those of you who signed up for the newsletter). We’re also going to delve into some other things like user submitted party pictures and videos. We’ve also got some great “how-to’s” coming up like “how to make your own moonshine.”

So keep us bookmarked, RSSed (is that a word?) and check back on a regular basis because TDP is about to become one bad mother f*#ker.

p.s. I’m sorry to all the beer aficianados about the summer beers post. I did it to piss off all the haters from the Rogue Dead Guy ale post.

        

Ever wake up wondering where your tooth went, an unidentified crying baby in the bedroom and a live tiger in the bathroom, only to find out your best friend is missing and his awkward, sometimes creepy, future brother-in-law drugged you the night before? (Go see The Hangover people—it’s hilarious) Me either, but I have woken up to some regrettable text messages in my sent box. And now I have even more reason to worry: TFLN

It’s a site where people can text in hilarious text messages they’ve received (Posted showing area code and text only), and then let the rest of the world either congratulate or make fun of the person by voting the message as a Good Night or a Bad Night. It’s like the drunk person’s version of Fmylife.com, but without the whining.

In the meantime, I pulled a few that made me laugh.

(506): drank two beers while on the toilet at home during lunch break. new high or new low, not sure

(443): so high driving around just saw a woman in a pink shirt chillin riding a horse
(914): so high at work that a 35 year old with his kids handed me visine and winked at me. you win with the horse though

(231): So I thought I was slick leaving his room this morning all incognito. Little did I know I was wearing his football jersey with his name across the back… stilettos & my bra was left behind. never seeing that again

(949): I an trashes at a wedding. Hotbcousins here I come. Agh.

(817): is it bad that i think of my life in terms of the sims? like when i’m hitting it off with someone, i really wish a plus sign would appear above my head. and when i throw up from drinking way too much, a minus sign.

(214): Do you have any cake mix? I kind of need to make a “im sorry i drank all your parents tequila, threw up all over your floor and slept with you boyfriend” cake.

(304): I was so drunk last night, I had to Wikipedia what i did.

(603): Haha she couldn’t find her dress in the morning. So she left it. How do the hell do I discreetly return that to her at work. More importantly, how did she discreetly do the walk of shame??

(301): you thought that fire hydrant was a midget…you gave it a hug and asked for a lollipop.

(774): i just walked into a room at this party and someone yelled “dibs!”…

(510): he said he didn’t have a condom.
(415): and you said?
(510): that that’s fine cause i was ready to be a mom. yeah – he magically had a condom he forgot about after that.

(440): The ticket read “Found nude in a tree”

(512): i just sat at a stop sign for 10 minutes waiting for it to turn green. i need to STOP SMOKING THIS SHIT.

(434): why are there goldfish crackers all over my bed?
(540): you decided you wanted to name them & keep them as pets.

(717): hey this is lauren, i have to type for jon because he’s convinced the tongs he’s holding are his real hands

(720): o shit let me call u back theres a hamburger in my pocket

(724): also, i may or may not be wearing a cape right now. hint: i am.