The Disgusting Alcoholic Beverage (DAB, perhaps) seems to be having a moment. Alie Ward and Georgia Hardstark have achieved minor Internet fame — and now a Times writeup — for their McNuggetini, a chocolate shake with vanilla vodka, barbecue sauce on the rim, and a chicken McNugget garnish. They've also cooked up such upsetting concoctions as the Ham Daiquiri and the Bloody Bacon and Cheese. And they're not alone — bacon has now infiltrated both cocktails and beer. These DABs all wear their grossness with pride — they aim to be, if not players in what's supposedly the current cocktail revolution, at least an entertaining sideshow. But as anyone who's ever tried to drink before the legal drinking age knows, the true DAB is born of desperation — when there's no decent alcohol around, and no reliable means to purchase it, and all you have are your wits and some liquids that really shouldn't be mixed.

The grossest drink that ever passed my lips was Jager mixed with Red Bull — I know this is semi-popular, but it tasted more like poison than anything I've ever had before or since. My college friends, however, used to try to stretch a dwindling booze supply with a much grosser libation they called "church wine" — Carlo Rossi jug red mixed with Dr. Pepper. This swill actually ate through a paper cup one night while my roommate and I slept — inexplicably, one of us had been unwilling to finish it — trickled into my roommate's underwear drawer, and stained her bra. So I've always associated the Disgusting Alcoholic Beverage with squalid — and booze-stained — high school and college living.

If the rest of the staff is any indication, I'm not far off. Anna's unfavorite drink of all time is "malt liquor beverages with flavoring." While I agree that these are empirically gross, they'll always have a soft spot in my heart for their role at crappy high school parties. Says Margaret, "The only drink underage Wellesley students with no car could construct was a 'screwdriver' made of fake orange juice stolen from the dining hall and vodka that came in a giant plastic jug. Pour in a funky-smelling Nalgene bottle and serve." And in a similar but slightly worse vein, Katy once ran out of other options and decided to melt orange popsicles to mix with vodka. The verdict: "It was horrible." Some, however, had more high-concept, perhaps more McNuggetini-like DABs to report. Sadie says, "I used to know this sweet old lady who loved these vile Finlandia chocolates filled with sweetened Vodka and would always give them to me. One night, my friends and I made a shot from emptying about 15 of them per glass. It was...not good." But the winner, in my opinion, is Dodai, who writes,

my junior high school friend created a "punch" inspired by those chocolate oranges you see during the holidays. this meant: orange juice, mandarin orange slices, and, the kiss of death: KAHLUA. it was vile.

Consider yourselves warned.

Mixing Meaty Cocktails With A Shot Of Celebrity [NYT]

Despite having, according to legend, invented the cocktail, the female bartender has had a hard road. According to a WSJ article on the history of the profession, since the 19th century there have been laws on the books prohibiting women from working behind the bar. Post-war, even more legislation went into effect, including a Michigan prohibition that four female bartenders challenged (unsuccessfully) all the way to the Supreme Court. Female bartenders didn't become legal in California until 1971 - and then only because "a topless bar called Sail'er Inn...wanted to move some dancers behind the bar to mix drinks in dishabille." Indeed, the first wave of 1970s female bartenders were considered a profitable investment but not, as the article says, due to "skills in actually making drinks."

The rationale for excluding women was a combination of cronyism and paternalism. Men wanted the jobs; others didn't want women corrupted by the atmosphere. According to my boyfriend, his grandfather wouldn't let Grandma Minnie anywhere near the saloon he ran for local steelworkers; that the one time she came in she found him fox-trotting with a "floozie" to some hot jukebox jazz may have had a little something to do with it too.

Nowadays, although male bartenders still outnumber their female counterparts, it's largely an open playing field. I queried some of beer-slinging gals I know for their take. One career bartender, Betsy, asserted that "it used to be, like in the 70s, you had two kinds: the sexy girl who got big tips, and the bitch who kept order. Now, I feel like you don't need to play to that." Everyone said there are jerks who regard female bartenders as fair game - "but the flip side of that card is big tips, however philosophically problematic. Way more than male counterparts" - and no one I talked to felt that their sex was problematic in terms of physical stuff like throwing drunks out. "Although once I called for reinforcements on a rowdy night," says on Brooklyn woman. I also wanted to hear their takes on one bartender's assertion in the article that female bartenders employ "a nurturing nature not common to men in the business." "Oh yeah," replied one. "All those tender squeezings of limes." Said Betsy, "in one of the fancy new cocktail bars? Maybe sometimes women have an attention to detail...but whatever, I have ADD, so forget the generalizations, ok? And when it comes to pulling beers, who cares?"

Women Behind Bars [Wall Street Journal]

From Life & Style this week, we get the official The Break-Up cocktail.

Perhaps someone who's been repeatedly beaten around the head with a shovel and then exposed to dangerous levels of toxic industrial chemicals and then beaten around the head with a shovel some more, would believe that this drink has anything whatsoever to do with the film, or Jennifer Aniston's PUBLIC PAIN AND SHAME or the fact that you just fled to the nearest bar after coming home early and finding your fiance shagging your father in your own bed and hell, you've got break-up issues of your own.

But whatever, some poor intern at Life & Style had to call 30 bartenders in one day desperately trying to get someone to give them a recipe for a cocktail that they could call the Break-Up so they could fill a space in their magazine, so why not give it a whirl.

Ingredients

1 part Starbucks Cream Liqueur
1 part Suaza Tres Generaciones Plata tequila

Directions

Pour into a shaker with ice, shake, then strain into a martini glass.

Repeat ten times, and if you're still alive, LOSER, drink a pint of bleach.