Revisiting the Alcohol that ruined us
We all have one drink that we can’t even look at because of too many traumatic memories. For me it’s Absolut mango vodka. One fateful night at the age of 16, I asked my brother to buy me alcohol. He ran out of time to go buy it, so he gave me what he had left in his room - one disgusting litre of mango-flavoured hell. Drinking culture in New Zealand is something frequently discussed, it’s obviously an important thing to highlight because it causes harm to a lot of individuals and communities. HOWEVER, I’m not going to get into that in this piece, instead I’m going to retell some stories that have caused people some proper good Never Have I Ever stories.
One of the most common perpetrators was the classic bottle of Scrumpy, I’ve fallen victim to both the raspberry and original flavour. My very first time getting drunk was off a toxic combination of both flavours, with two good friends of mine we drank until our heads felt funny and we suddenly felt like a walk on the beach. That was a pivotal time in my life, taking drunk Snapchat stories and feeling so special and different. From that point on it became my drink of choice, $9 a bottle plus the service fee my brother would pay for having to buy the alcohol. It was budget friendly and kind of gross but it did the trick. Then of course there was the famous Scrumpy hands, I never took part myself but we all know the idea. Tape one Scrumpy bottle to each hand and they can’t be taken off, and you can’t use the bathroom, until both are finished. It’s truly a sad indictment on New Zealand drinking culture but it’s also a pretty hilarious game. One night, my wallet was feeling light so I decided to pick up a bottle of the Scrump at New World. I took one sip of that and was immediately transported back to walking out of my mum's house for a ‘sleepover’ with two bottles of Scrumpy in my backpack.
I decided it would be a fun idea to talk to my mum about her experience with alcohol in the days of yore. Turns out, she was a huge tequila drinker in her late teens and twenties, shots, mixed drinks and cocktails, the whole nine yards. She drank so much of it when she was younger that she basically didn’t touch it for 20 years. That is until one fateful night, at my brother's 18th birthday when his giggly friends dared her to take tequila shots with them. What followed was a deeply confusing situation. Sixteen-year-old me watched from the side of the bar as my mum and dad, who had been separated for 10 years, threw back tequila shots. My mum describes the rest of that evening as “the night my legs stopped working”.
Caitlin, a former Massey student started her career off with a classic introduction to the world of alcohol - with vodka Cruisers and apple cider at a family event. From then she has experienced all the highs and lows of teen drinking in New Zealand, KGBs, Woodstocks and even a bit of beer. However, none of them have scarred her in the way one perpetrator has - Galliano. Galliano is a vanilla/herbal liqueur that has stopped Caitlin from being able to even look at a bottle of it without feeling ill. After breaking up with her boyfriend in first year, she came back to her place in a rage and noticed a bottle of Galliano that he’d left at her place. First of all, any man who drinks liqueur is a walking red flag, just drink something normal you freak. Apparently, this bottle was quite special to Mr Trash Man, so Caitlin decided to take it with her to a hall party that night. She passed it around to her friends, and then downed the rest of the bottle on her own. She doesn’t remember what happened after that, but still cringes at any vanilla flavoured alcohol.
Scrumpy hands is obviously a stupid game, but what’s even stupider is Nitro hands. Same principle, but with two bottles of caffeinated vodka taped to your hands. Who would be stupid enough to take part in this? I’ll tell you who, our very own editor Mr Mason Tangatatai. Mason confessed to me that one night he did ‘Nitro hands’ and ended up getting so drunk he vomited on someone's dog, all by 9pm. I’m sure Mason will be apologising to miniature schnauzers everywhere in his next editorial. Mason has a diverse and interesting taste in alcohol, he brought dessert wine to a staff BYO and also tells me that he drinks Tui because it tastes like vegemite. We should call for his resignation immediately.
Before I end this nostalgic look back on teenage binge drinking, I’d also like to give an honourable mention to a drink that was mentioned frequently on my highly sophisticated Instagram story poll. Smirnoff Ice was one devilish product that people reported as being the first instance of taking it too far. It’s almost sad that we can’t consume these convenient, delicious vessels to get drunk anymore because we are reminded of that one time we drank a box of them and vomited at a bus stop (just me?).
There’s no lesson to this piece, except that maybe we should go back to our roots. It could be a fun experiment/party idea to be only allowed to get drunk on the first thing you ever ruined yourself on. I think maybe I have a pretty twisted idea of fun, but it’s definitely worth thinking about.
Drink responsibly this weekend, and don’t vomit on anyone's dog.