The Top 10 Drinks Only America Could Have Invented
Independence Day 2008 inspired Endless Simmer’s most popular all-time post: The Top 10 Foods Only America Could Have Invented. So by popular demand (actually, by DAD GANSIE’s year-old suggestion), we’ve returned with a list of 10 ridiculous, patriotic ways to wash down all those corn dogs and buffalo wings. Don’t head out to the BBQs this 4th of July weekend without first consulting The Top 10 Drinks Only America Could Have Invented:
10. Irish Car Bomb
What? You thought this one was invented in Ireland? Yeah, by a leprechaun who needed something to pour over his Lucky Charms. In fact, this often-spilled, rather insensitive homage to the Emerald Isle’s Troubles was first concocted at Wilson’s Saloon in St. Norwich, Connecticut on St. Patrick’s Day, 1979. Only our most industrious country could produce minds bright enough to think “Hey, I can get drunk twice as fast if I just drop my shot right into my beer!” For the uninformed, a Car Bomb is equal parts Jameson Whiskey and Bailey’s Irish Cream, poured into a shot glass. Then you drop the shot into a pint of Guinness and chug the whole thing. Brilliant!
Honorable mentions: Sake bomb (pretty sure they don’t do this in Tokyo), and the Russian Boilermaker (surprise — not from Moscow).
(Photo: Penguin Bush)
9. Long Island Iced Tea
Looks so deceptively refreshing, doesn’t it? Only the most ridiculous place in all of America could loan its name to a drink that basically involves pouring everything behind the bar into one glass. For the record, a traditional Long Island is made from vodka, gin, tequila, rum, triple sec, sour mix and just a splash of cola. It tastes surprisingly un-revolting and (less surprisingly) makes you do some pretty stupid things after drinking it.
(Photo: Krscoci)
8. Venti Double Chocolate Chip Frappuccino
It’s not dessert! It’s coffee! Riiiiight. Only Starbucks could convince the skinny jean wearing, yogalates practicing, yuppie women of America that it’s OK to buy a drink that has more calories than a bucket of lard. But if it’s served in a cup, it doesn’t count as food.
(Photo: Shiok or Not)
7. The Bacontini
If there’s one thing we Yanks do well, it’s obsession. And anyone who’s every met one of us can tell you there are two things we can’t stop talking about: getting effed up, and bacon. So it was only a matter of time before we combined our two loves into one outrageous, trend-ending drink. The bacontini, now appearing on every blog, and soon enough, every bar across the USA.
6. Exercise Beer
But what to do the morning after you wake up and realize you’ve consumed nine shots of vodka and half-a-pound of bacon? Obviously, that’s when you switch over to exercise beer. The latest trend in American brews is super-low calorie beers like MGD 64, Select 55, and Michelob Ultra, which is my favorite because the ads for it actually show people drinking beer and then exercising. Finally, a way to get wasted every night and still lose weight, because you wouldn’t want to do something as drastic as, say, drink a little less beer.
5. Pepsi Max
Speaking of our beer consumption, if you’ve ever wondered why American dudes insist on drinking the hoppy stuff so consistently, it’s because our non-alcoholic beverage options are so limited. Drinking soda will make you fat, and drinking diet soda, of course, will make you gay. Thank god the considerate folks over at Pepsi were wise enough to invent Pepsi Max, a sugar-free soda made just for males. I wouldn’t be caught dead drinking Diet Pepsi (how embarrassing!) But a new version of Diet Pepsi with twice as much caffeine, Xtreme packaging, and commercials where dudes get hit in the nuts? Sign me up!
4. Cosmopolitan
But stupid drinks aren’t just for dudes. We’ve got the 1980’s to thank for this one. Well, them and Minneapolis bartender Neal Murray, who realized there were plenty of gals (and sure, some guys) who wanted to look like they were drinking something suave, but didn’t want it to actually taste like a drink. And thus the birth of the candy-in-a-cup cocktail, and the reason why in half the bars you walk into nowadays, you can barely find anything on the mixed drink list that doesn’t start with something stupid and end in -tini. It’s all based on the idea that if you make the drink look pretty, people will pay you twice as much for it, which works out well for you, because it’s got half as much alcohol and twice as much fake candy flavor. Genius. Also, horrible.
3. Jell-O Shots
And of course there’s the drink designed for those for thought the Cosmopolitan was too sophisticated, too natural looking, and didn’t taste enough like candy. We suggest red, white and blue Jell-O shots this Independence Day.
(Photo: Forty Photographs)
2. Bottled Tap Water
OK, fine, the French may have been bottling their water to wash down their Turduckens for centuries, but at least they claim their shit is from magical springs or whatnot. Only in America could you turn something that falls from the sky on a regular basis into an $8-billion-a-year-industry. The best example has got to be the entrepreneur who recently thought to bottle New York City’s acclaimed tap water, and sell it in stores….in New York. Seriously, people?
1. Coca-Cola
What do you get when you mix sugar, phosphoric acid, coca leaf, kola nut, caffeine, caramel color, glycerin and some other flavors so much grosser than that they have to remain “secret?” Why, the most popular drink in the history of the country of course! Pretty crazy that this is something we put in our bodies rather than use to clean rust off our cars. Oh wait, it can do that, too. Yum.
Previously: The Top 10 Foods Only America Could Have Invented
I am of the firm conviction that Jello is the food of Satan. Adding booze doesn’t change that.
Food of Satan, not the drink of Satan. Should it be on the list?
Add to the list: Non-alcoholic beer. Only American innovators would find a way to sell piss in a bottle.
The most ridiculous thing about the cosmo is the glass. Why make a drink that strong and RED and put in a martini glass. Just asking for spillage and stains!
I think we need a “food of satan” list, please.
This is a really great top ten list. Jello shots are for sure an American invention, we probably comsue more jello than everyone else on the planet combined. Anyone can post their own list my site.
The last time I played with the LIT, I think I drank 6. I woke up in a ditch a few blocks from my home. Someone was shaking me informing me that if I didn’t get up I would die. It was snowing balls.
Never again LIT, Never again.
I had expected more alcohol beverages to be in the top ten.
Other than “The Bacotini” I think I’ve had all on the list. Yay me!
What about all the other ridiculous shots out there like The Kamikaze and the Buttery Nipple? In other countries, people just drink their shots. They don’t give them stupid names.
The Bacontini sounds like everything that goes into my “hair of the dog” plans, but all at once rather than seperately….I’m disgusted, but strangely intruiged.
Ditto on the “Food of Satan” list request. And, cosmos were decent when first invented: just a drop or two of cranberry in the vodka/triple sec. The ones you get nowadays are like juice with a drop of booze.
I think you’re being a little misleading about the Bottled Tap Water entry. That brand was made as a project to point out the absurdity of the bottled water industry, where brands like Aquafina sell tap water but market it as high-class spring water. Yeah, bottled water is a horrible thing, especially when you’re shipping it from far-off places like France or Fiji, but I think you’re picking on the ONE brand that recognizes this, and the ONE brand that is trying to draw attention to the fact that our tap water is often just as good (if not better.)
Oh, and if there are any doubts about the intentions of “Tap’d”, check out their blog.
http://truthinhydration.com/about-us
I’m sorry, Simmerers, but I’ve got to point out that Pepsi Max was available in Britain long, long before it made it to US shelves. I went to grad school in London in ‘97/’98, and I wrote the bulk of my dissertation while hopped up on Pepsi Max.
Nick’s suggestion of non-alcoholic beer also made its first appearance in the Old World. The Germans can take the blame. I’ve read that Hitler had special non-alcoholic beer brewed for his own consumption, because he loved the taste of beer but didn’t want the alcohol. I’m sure that HitlerBier was tastier than O’Douls… I have it on good authority that the brands of NA beer that are imported from Germany are vastly superior to the American swill.
If this were a facebook quiz I would be 100% American. Damn skippy.
Hey – a good cosmo is almost all vodka. Should have a splash of cranberry juice and a squeeze of lime.
Neal Murray invented the cosmopolitan? What about Toby Cecchini’s drink invented at the Odeon in NYC? Check out his book “Cosmopolitan: A Bartender’s life” Broadway Books C.2003.
Eh the IRA carbomb is made up completely of Irish products, even if it was thought of to call it that in America its probably just because Irish people aren’t going to go into a pub and ask for one of those, we simply call them depth charges and it can be a shot of any spirit dropped into any beer. I’m really not surprised many other alcoholic drinks made the list, Americans are lightweight drinkers and you’se know it.
I’ve had 3 of these and 1 I tried from a girlfriend’s glass (the Long Island Iced Tea). Frappuccinos are ridiulous (though admittedly I’ve had the bottled versions, which were okay, aside from the burnt milk flavor). Bacontinis are another example of people needing to STFU about bacon. “Low-carb/low-calorie” beers are about as manly as drinking a shot of estrogen. Pepsi Max tastes just as horrible as any other diet soda. Cosmos are… yeah let’s just skip that one. Jello shots taste like vodka and ass. Bottled water, yes, I’ve had it, but usually it’s just my own tap water that I’ve poured into the nifty bottles (gotta keep hydrated on stage). Coke as a “degreasing” agent is about as impressive as lemon juice as a degreasing agent. Come on people, it’s the citric acid that does it. But I will stand by my Irish Car Bomb. Stuff tastes good, what can I say?
Ok I want to say I really like the ICB’s, once you get past the Jameson, the Baileys and Guinness mix and taste like chocolate milk. The only issue is its really hard to slam a pint of Guinness. I have done it but it wasn’t easy. I would much rather enjoy the pint at a nice smooth pace and not mix it up with the other stuff.
The first one is originally irish, NOT invented in america, idiot.
Egyptian pharaohs used to have a drink that was very similar to coke. it tasted the same….so America did not really invent it.
Pepsi Max wasn’t invented in America.
pfhh,
usa
what’s new?
you all suck
Really. Coke is on here but Dr Pepper gets left out. This is an outrage.
Yeah. Sissy-sounding drinks are for el-femmo homosexuals. Or Europeans.
Real Merkin men–the kind with testicles hanging heavy and low–like the kind of mixed drinks only a real Merkin man would consider touching with him big, manly, truck-drivin’ hands.
Man drinks. Drinks like “Fucking Whiskey,” “Whiskey and Whiskey,” “Double Whiskey,” and “Get that fucking monkey away from my whiskey or I’ll bash in his little skull with lime.”
Oh, TakewhatIhave, Dr. Pepper wasn’t invented in America. It was cooked up by some dope fiend out in the middle of Bugscuffle Bottoms, Texas. And Texas, as we all know, is like a whole ‘nother country. Raaaaht, Podnah? Sho-wee, boy-howdy, shucks.
You realize that 7 parts of a properly made cosmo are composed of vodka. Right? And to the idiot saying vodka tastes like something, stop buying shitty vodka.
An undeniable universal truth: Where there is an internet article written for the simple sake of comedy, there will be people to overreact and over-analyze it…
But, seriously people. I don’t care what they call an Irish Car Bomb in Ireland, what’s actually in a good martini, or who actually invented Coke or Pepsi MAX. This article was taking American stereotypes and assigning consumables to them for the sole sake of humor. No one’s treading on your culture or interests, or trying to second guess how much alcohol you can drink. Take the damn article for what it’s worth. Laugh or don’t and keep stumbling.
Truth has been spoken above.