The worst drink I've ever had in my life is when my Rice friends came to visit me in Florence and, not understanding the Italian labels, made cocktails of pineapple juice mixed with what they thought was vodka, but was actually anise (licorice flavor + pineapple = "GET IT OFF MY TONGUE!"). But this next story is a close second.
When I should have been old enough to know better, I met two of my friends near Sixth Street for dinner and afterwards we opted to hit the bars. If you are not familiar, Sixth Street in Austin is where 21-year-olds go to drink carefully crafted cranberry vodkas, and generally is a place where bad decisions are made. We made our way inside Barcelona, a basement locale with sticky floors and pulsating EDM music. I texted another friend to come share the joy of this experience with us, and for some reason he agreed and said he would be over soon.
Satisfied with this development, my friends and I headed to the bar and ordered drinks, when one girl realized her parking meter was about the expire. My other friend agreed to accompany her to her car, leaving me alone at the club, holding all the drinks we just ordered, in case the person I invited showed up. So here I am, awkwardly standing alone at the bar, with three drinks, in a club full of people too young to know what hangovers even are, and the bartender comes over and says, "You need a shot." Who am I to disagree?
So he puts a bunch of stuff in a shaker, does bartender stuff, and pours a shot for me and one for himself. We say cheers, and then I throw down what I immediately identify as the most horrible shot I've ever had in my life. It tasted like purple cough syrup gone horribly, horribly wrong. Like a grape Jolly Rancher had been mixed with Windex and been left to marinate in the sun for a while. DJ Screw would have spit out this shot. Unable to even try to conceal my displeasure, I turned to the bartender with, "What the hell is this?"
"Statutory Grape," was his response.
Can we all agree that:
1) That is a horribly inappropriate name for a shot, in general
2) It is definitely an inappropriate shot to give a girl BY HERSELF AT A BAR
3) Why are you giving rancid Dimetapp ("grape")-flavored shots to someone who is 30
4) Seriously, why are we making jokes, much less drinks, out of statutory rape
I took my armful of drinks and escaped far, far away from that bartender.