Barrett's Mixology

By Daniel F. Linsalata | Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Hometown Hockey Hooch

1 large bottle purple sports drink
2 cans of Red Bull
8 oz. Vodka

Mix all ingredients in sufficiently large container.
Consume clandestinely.

Thanksgiving is yet another one of those holidays that I find to be unbearable. I have more cousins, aunts, and uncles than my two sisters and I can count on all of our fingers and toes combined, but my parents, thankfully, do not force us to attend those odious, incest-laden time bombs known as family reunions. Christmas is spent with family and close friends in our immediate locale, and other holidays are time for our immediate family-for better or worse. But Thanksgiving...ah, Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is spent with different clans of relatives each year, and with each bit of picayune banter that ensues, our gene pool becomes a little bit shallower.

Last year we found ourselves in South Dakota. If you have never been to South Dakota and want to see Mount Rushmore, it's not worth the effort. As I looked around the dinner table that Thursday evening, I recognized five of the seventeen present. Namely, myself and my immediate family. Seated to my right was Uncle Travis, a blood relative who bore no resemblance to anybody in the family I had previously met. It was probably better that way. A homely man, to be generous, barely standing five foot seven and not a day over twenty-three, "Uncle" Travis wore a flannel shirt with a Skoal ring in the front-pocket to the dinner table. I tried my best to not converse with him, and did well until the third platter of turkey, when he nudged me, spit into my glass of wine, and asked if I liked hockey.

"Well, no, not really. I mean, it's alright."

"Yew wanna go to a game? Git out of here right now?"

"Well anything could be better than this. Let's go."

We both excused ourselves, he to "piss like a donkey," and I to talk to a man about a horse. After using the facilities, we reconvened in the kitchen, where I observed him pouring a pre-mixed concoction into a rubberized bladder, equipped with a long straw; he dropped this into a backpack. I patted my flask comfortingly in my left hip pocket. I sat three seats away from him at hockey game, which featured a local Division III school and similar school from a few country miles away. I never noticed the score; I did notice Uncle Travis, clad in a cowboy hat, waving a large foam finger, and taking periodic pulls off of his straw. I asked no questions; he gave no answers.

Barrett's Mixology

Article Tools

Related Articles