Chowhound is a weekly column about what’s trending in Detroit food culture. Tips: [email protected].
January 1 is National Bloody Mary Day. It’s also a virtual zombie apocalypse in the bar business. In hordes all half-dead hungover, countless creatures of the night before drag themselves back onto barstools, practically begging to be put out of their misery. Taking pity on them as an innkeeper over the years, I’ve provided many that service.
Armed with a bartender’s arsenal, I’ve pumped countless rounds of hair-of-the-dog ammunition into pale and pasty faces, doing all I could to end — or suspend — as much living death among the cursed ranks of the morning after as humanly possible. I’ve poured heavy, aiming to shotgun-numb pain receptors in brain cells they’d failed to kill-off properly themselves the night previous. Left barely animated by pulsing pain receptors and alcohol-affected capillaries just about bursting inside booze-abused skull caps, they’d come to me for mercy. Like a medic ill-equipped to save souls on a battlefield, I’ve used bourbon to bandage, strong ales to anesthetize, and tequila shots as tourniquets to triage many a wounded warrior. Some stabilized and recovered. Others faded after failed efforts to resuscitate. Most just ended up getting loaded again.
Having been to over-imbibing hell and back myself, I feel for these foot-shot soldiers. Having watched so many men, women, and veritable children limp back to my bars for the annual New Year’s Day wound licking, I find them fairly uniform and funny, dressed-down as they are the day after the big, boozy night.
First and foremost, let me hand it to you, ladies, for trying to hide how horrible you’re feeling under a dead giveaway fashion statement ensemble that screams look-at-me-all-cute-and-hungover. I’ve seen you; peeking-out from under pretty little baseball caps with last night’s hair in a ponytail, trying to pass for comfortable, sporting soft pastel sweat outfits and girlie sneakers. You can’t fool me, my overindulgent sisters. The bills of those caps don’t completely cover-up those pretty-pink, bloodshot eyes; their smoked and mascaraed perfection from the night previous still left on and smeared ever so slightly by a few hours of sloppy, drunken sleep. And in those silky sweats and sneakers, bodies you just abused, softly blanketed. And why the pulled-back hair? A practical consideration, perhaps; for lady-like puking, prior to your visit to my bar or, God forbid, during.
As to guys who make less effort to disguise their hungover states, they’ll do the cap thing, too, only backwards. As someone generationally sandwiched between uncles who played baseball professionally and a son who pitched collegiately, the look makes me laugh, especially when I see guys trying to pull it off who appear far from athletic, are on the wrong side of 40, or who, while looking young and/or fit enough to wear a catcher’s headgear, sport those plastic, snap-strap styles some older men must think make them look more youthfully manly while hiding male pattern baldness and/or bed-head. To me, it’s hilarious. Why don’t you try wearing shin guards, guys? Maybe the ladies will love ‘em. And just think of what a well-padded chest protector might do to cover-up flabby pecs and beer bellies. How about wristbands? What athletic type-loving gal could resist a man in wristbands? And don’t even get me started on the possible bad boy appeal of putting on eye black. Now, there’s a macho get-up, head to toe.
Again, I digress. I guess what men do well when they’re hungover messes is to simply just admit as much.
“Dude, I am so hung-over,” is the standard New Year’s Day greeting I’ve come to expect and respect. It lets me know what I’m dealing with and need to do. Shots. Doubles. Shots and beers. Shots and bloody marys. Double barrel everything. Most women are content to nurse a hangover one palliative pour at a time. Guys take more of a civil war surgeon’s approach; aggressively amputating pain at its source, albeit a cerebral one, and many are the men I’ve had to cut-off for lacking the brains to know when to say when again. They say the female gender matures at an earlier stage than males do. Assuming “they” represent the collective wisdom of human psychology and/or assorted other behavioral sciences, this longtime student of human nature who’s studied from the field of mixology can only agree.
As to new generations of drinkers I’ve observed coming of age over time, from mine forty years ago until now, the general flow of things seems to continue to go about the same from one to the next. The just-getting-legally-started seem to fare pretty well for the most part. With their wasted high school and college party days behind them by and large, they mind better manners for their age while fitting themselves into proper adult beverage society. I think what the cost of craft beers and cocktails have come to may help that cause of moderation these days, especially if you’re a young, twenty-something with only so much of a booze budget. Maybe the self-restraint challenges don’t really begin to kick in until that first career-starting salary offer comes or mom and dad stop paying those credit card bar bills. That’s when you’re really on your own out there in the drinking world; when it’s all up to you to jump or crawl out of bed come morning after a long night out, to make it in to work or call out with some excuse other than the real, hungover, reason for your doing so. Take it from a guy who could fill a book with some of the stories I’ve made up for missing work because of alcohol withdrawal. If anyone out there needs one next week, try my passed-some-bloody-stool go-to that no boss ever questioned me further on when I called out with it. As a longtime employer later in life, I’d advise you stay away from the usual phone-in cliches: sick kids, car trouble, sudden deaths of aunts and uncles and such. Be specific. And bleeding hemorrhoids is a winner.
Subscribe to Metro Times newsletters.
Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
