Major Fraternity Milestones And What To Drink For Them

Whiskey_Ginger11 years ago

Brothers, we find ourselves, in our time at college, celebrating many fraternity milestones. From the start of pledging to our alumni induction ceremony, we have many reasons to celebrate. This, then, is a guide to what you should drink for each occasion. Use it well.

The Start of Pledging

At the start of pledging, you’ll be drinking whatever the actives tell you you’re drinking. Hopefully it actually has some alcohol content and is not literally just piss and water. That would be bad, but also a sign that you probably joined a house that prides itself on “gayzing.” If so, get out fast. If not, enjoy drinking enough Natty to make even that guy who can finish a 30 in one sitting vomit. This will pretty much be all you’re drinking throughout pledging, so prepare yourself.

The End of Pledging

Congrats, you survived. For this occasion, treat yourself to something nice. Best options include a nice bottle of whiskey or a high quality six pack or four. You’ve earned a night out and a week off. Enjoy it. You’ll remember pledging as “the best 6-10 weeks of your life that you’ll never want to go through again.” Celebrate accordingly.

Your First Pregnancy Scare

Everclear. You need to black out and forget that your life might end as quickly as humanly possible. In two weeks, you’ll hopefully get some positive, non-baby related news and should then be able to celebrate with something high in alcohol content but also classy. I recommend Sink the Bismarck. It’s a beer, but only in the sense it is made from the same grains beer is made from. The near 40% alcohol content should help you celebrate and consign this chapter of your fraternity life to the depths of your memory.

Your First Formal

For formal, always go high class. If you’re taking cheap alcohol to formal for anything other than drinking games, you’re doing it wrong. Go all out and buy top shelf. As the one weekend of the semester where we go away and try to show some class, at least make sure your alcohol is classy, even if your behavior is going to be so far from it that you’ll make Jerry Springer cringe.

Big Brother’s Graduation

If your big brother is graduating, prepare to spring for something good as well. I recommend a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Label or something of equal class. Normal top shelf doesn’t really cut it for consoling a brother about to leave the magical wonderland of Greek Life for the harsh desert of the real world. He’ll need to black out, and your job as his little brother is to help get him there.

Every Spring Break, Ever

Go cheap. Really cheap. You’ll be drinking in quantities that could kill an entire auditorium full of normal people. I’m always a big fan of Kentucky Gentleman, which is a horrible misnomer, because it is neither. Natty and some kind of cheap vodka with enough flavoring that it’s tolerable should suffice. Play games, meet girls, dizzy bat on the beach, pass out, rinse, repeat for 7 days. You won’t remember the week, but the pictures inevitably taken by your pledge brother’s girlfriend will ensure you that you’ll never be able to forget it either.

Your Last Formal

It’s the end of an era, you’ll realize. Your last formal is a great milestone. It means you survived college. It also means that you probably lost a bunch of brain and liver cells along the way, but I like to think of it as natural selection, making you stronger for the future. Biology be damned if it doesn’t work that way.

Knowing it may be your last official function as an undergrad, drink nothing but the best. Drop a few hundred dollars on some high quality liquor and beer, and enjoy yourself. Try not to black out too hard. You’ll want to remember it all one day, especially because black out speeches tend to vary from weird to incomprehensible. First and foremost though, take the weekend to soak it all in one last time, and perhaps muse on your legacy with the help of some high class scotch. You’ve made it, after all.

College is a time for making mistakes and memories. Make sure to fuel both appropriately, gentlemen.