Drunk Story Time: The Parable of the Great White Whale.

The Oscar Gamble

Equal parts Brandy and Coke. 
Dash (or two) of Angostura bitters.
Over Ice.


"The don't think it be like it is, but it do."  

This is not a drink that is consumed when one is looking to savor the taste or enjoy your evening. It's a way to get rid of Brandy. A friend recommended this drink to me, and I'd never heard of it. He told me, "you taste it, and it's first obvious that the flavors don't go together, but they so do. They don't think it be like it is but they do!" He also described the next morning as "brutal."

How to Drink:
This is drink for someone who has a surplus of time and Brandy, and a deficit of emotional attachment. Best enjoyed after a dropping out of college or after a recent breakup.

It was the summer after my Freshman year of college, and I was back home in Podunk, Ill. (north of Chicago, south of Wisconsin, near Bradbury's Green Town). We were at the Jones', swimming in the pool while they were in Bora Bora, or Fiji, one of those far off Pacific Islands who's syllables rhyme and imported rums and fruit juices flow like they're native. It was the last time the whole gang was together, before Nicki went off and got married and King Kang went off to law school somewhere on the east coast, and there was a single bottle of Bourbon between the eight or so of us. No body was actually drinking heavily, partly because we didn't have enough to get us all drunk, but also because no one particularly liked Bourbon (at the time). I do know that everyone had at least one drink.

Well, everyone except one guy.

Let's call him Christian.

Christian was an overweight, libertarian albino with an inferiority complex, a habit of speaking from the diaphragm and a lust for a well-tailored suit. He was either going to be a failed Presidential candidate and part-time Fox News contributor, goddamn it, or he'd be dead at twenty-seven.

There was also this kid, we called him King Kang. He was this big, mild-mannered Korean kid who joked around in a fairly quiet voice. Honestly, King Kang was the most likeable person I've ever met, if a bit serious at times.

Anyways, we had retired to the Jones' pool, and I forget what we were talking about, but I guarantee were we tipsy and lost in conversation. But while we were lost in conversation, and I don't remember this specifically, but our albino had killed the remaining half-fifth and was now edging on our Korean royalty. "How much can you curl?" "How much can you press?" "How many women have you boned?" (I apologize for my vulgarity, but I assure you, it was much worse then how I'm recounting). And I don't recall exactly what prompted this intervention, but Adam pops in and says across the pool "Hey, why don't you just whip is out and compare sizes already?" We were all amused, except of course, Albino Christian and King Kang.

But Albino Christian didn't see this as a joke, and turns to King Kang and says "Six and a half, but it's thick." And King Kang, already sick of this kid's shit, he rolls his eyes and says, "Nine. And it's got more mileage with a women then yours has with your hand." And whether or not these claims are true, I don't care, because they probably aren't and because it's a great line.

In regards to what happened next, and I don't know if this was the straight Kentucky Bourbon or if rational decisions are somehow tied to how much melanin you have, but I have never, ever seen an albino have so much color in his face. And Albino Christian, drunk and flustered and enraged, yelled out, "You lying son of a bitch. I'll kill you!" and straight up leaped at King Kang.

Now, I called King Kang a "big Korean kid" for a reason. King Kang was about six-two, six-three maybe, and was built like a T-34. He was one of the few East Asians, I've ever met with great broad shoulders and barrel chested. Now, he had about eight inches of height and six inches of reach on Albino Christian, but, Albino Christian, he had the element of surprise with him, and they both plunged into the unnaturally blue water.

There was chaos underneath the surface, we could all feel it. But for that moment we were in shock. Did that just happen? What the hell did just happen? We just stood there, floating there in this pool, while a big fucking Korean kid kicked the shit out of a drunk Albino. And this went on for far too long. Our raging Asian was finally stopped by Adam. "Hey! No blood in the pool!"

Me and Adam pulled Albino Christian out of the pool and prop him up on a deck chair and cover him with a towel. It wasn't until then when I got a good look at his face. There were a couple of solid lumps on his cheeks and his eye was swelling closed. I turned to Adam and told him I was going to get some ice. I walked to the cooler, threw a couple of ice cubes in one of our sandwich bags and wrapped it in a towel.

"Here, hold this on your eye." He was drunk enough to listen. I felt comfortable leaving him alone for a while, and returned to the pool.

"What's white and black and blue all over?" "Albino Christian tomorrow morning."

I will admit that I was in the state of mind to have laugh at this joke. Uncontrollably. For like five minutes. I swear that it was appropriate for the situation. It was a take on a classic. But, I drew the line when they wanted to draw on his passed out face. "Hey fucktards, the Albino is done. He needs to go home."

Big Mike was the next person to leave, so we threw the Albino into shotgun of Big Mike's two door, cursing his drunk ass the entire way. Me and Big Mike had a moment there; I wanted to make sure Albino Christian got home safe, and Big Mike was telling me about how much fun he had that day.

"Yeah, except for that King Kang-Albino Christian thing," I said.
"Naw, especially because of that!" He replied. We said our goodbyes and he left into the night.


That was the last I saw of Albino Christian. We sure as hell never invited him to anything ever again. He was an obnoxious, and aggressive drunk. He picked his poison, and it wasn't Bourbon, not whiskey, not a liquor at all. He was someone who'd only get drunk with power.Competition was everything to him. It was not so much that he must win, but that he had to dominate others. To quote the great 20th century philosopher Dana Carvey, "If he was an ice cream flavor, he'd be pralines and dick."