Elementary school lunchrooms across the country are filled with kids creating bizarre mixtures and daring one another to drink them. Everything from chocolate milk to spaghetti sauce ends up in glasses with other ingredients featuring horrific textures and even worse flavors. But with the right combo of double dog dares and cookie bribes, these vile creations go straight down the hatch. Even sadder, that same scene plays out in bars every night as the 21-and-over crowd challenges each other’s intestinal fortitude with alcoholic concoctions that were never meant to be.
From Cement Mixers to the Liquid Steak, some drinkers have a strange fascination with challenging one another to imbibe stomach-churning cocktails and shooters. This fascination often turns to obsession as the night wears on and the booze keeps flowing. Many a 21st birthday celebration has come to a screeching halt when an Alligator Sperm or Prairie Oyster rolls down the birthday boy or girl's throat and just as quickly comes back up, much to the dismay of anyone within the splatter zone.
That said, these cocktails do display a healthy dose of creativity and sick imagination. And they're certainly an effective way of dealing with an annoying barfly or emphasizing the need for an early last call – projectile vomit does tend to clear rooms, after all.
Here are a few of the most vile shooters and cocktails your favorite bartender can serve up. Consider yourself warned.
The Cement Mixer – A mad scientist-style creation, the cement mixer uses the chemical properties of a fat and acid to create a texture that nature created as a warning to any who might consume it. By combining a shot of Baileys or other Irish cream liqueur with a hefty dose of lemon or lime juice, you create a disgusting curdled mass reminiscent of uncured cement. It's tasty, but there's no getting around the putrid texture. There's much debate as to whether the combination should happen in the shot glass or in the drinker's mouth so the brave soul can experience the curdling firsthand, but either way it's revolting.
-1 oz. Irish Cream Liqueur
-Juice of half a lime or lemon
Pour the liqueur into a shot glass and hold it in your mouth, followed by the citrus. Once they are both in your mouth, swish them around until well-curdled. You can also mix them in the glass before drinking for a visually impressive mess, byt you don't get to enjoy the sensation of the cream turning.
The Prairie Oyster – Another shooter that usually signals a quick end to a night, the Prairie Oyster mixes up bourbon, a raw egg and Tabasco. In the hands of a master mixologist this combination can actually become something delicious. As presented, however, with a hefty dose of hot sauce crushing any nuance and sweetness from the bourbon, and the viscous egg yolk sliding through the teeth and down the drinker's gullet to sit like a lead weight in the stomach, just begging to come back up, it crushes what little hope there was left of a nausea free evening.
-1 oz. bourbon (it really doesn't matter what kind you use)
-1 egg
-Several dashes of your favorite hot sauce
Drop all the ingredients together in a lowball glass and mix gently, so as not to break the egg yolk. The idea is to feel the solid mass as you drink it – as if it was an oyster shooter. Some people pinch their nose when they drink this, others try to down it as quickly as possible. But most end up tasting this drink twice no matter what they do.
The Liquid Steak – Meat in liquid form is never a good idea. Even though this drink contains no actual meat, most would agree the rule holds true regardless. Rum and Worcestershire sauce are combined in a lowball glass and actually taste remarkably like a bad steak, offering up all the funk of a poorly aged chunk of meat without any of the satisfaction of chewing on a hunk of the real thing. The molasses funk of the rum melds with the Worcestershire's umami flavor to offer up a cocktail that vegetarians and carnivores can agree on – this thing was not meant to be.
-2 oz. rum (again, the brand doesn't matter much, but aged rum works better and spiced rum should be avoided at all costs)
-2 oz. Worcestershire sauce
Mix the two together in a glass of your choice, chug it down and pray to keep it there.
The Motor Oil – Combining some of the strongest-tasting forms of alcohol available into a slurry that ends up looking as thick and poisonous as real motor oil definitely falls under the “seemed like a good idea at the time” category. Jagermeister, peppermint schnapps, cinnamon schnapps and coconut rum go together about as well as the GOP and Democrats these days. And like Congress, the resulting mix is more than a little nauseating. The spice and alcohol burn of the Jagermeister and schnapps are throat searing and ensure the drinker won't taste another thing the rest of the night. The coconut rum adds a touch of sugar that makes it seem like you're drinking literally sweet crude.
-.5 oz. Jagermeister
-.5 oz. peppermint schnapps
-.5 oz cinnamon schnapps
-.5 oz. coconut rum
Mix all the ingredients in a lowball glass or tumbler and drink it up. Fast or slow, the next day will likely be one of the worst of your life.
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