10 Drinks You Should Have Stopped Drinking In College - Paste Magazine

College was a beautiful, confusing, liberating experience. You had liquor with flecks of gold in it. You went to parties and drank straight from trash cans. Perfect strangers held your ankles while you sucked on a tap.

If you’re reading this and you’re currently matriculating, live it up. For the rest of us who are no longer worried about mid-terms, it’s okay to be nostalgic every once in a while. Just don’t try too hard to recreate those blurred college memories. I’m a firm believer that the occasional keg stand will keep you young (inverted beer chugging is the fountain of youth), but there are some drinks that you should never revisit as a mature adult. Here are 10 on the Black List.

1. Natural Light or Keystone Light
Both beers have the same features: cheap, tasteless, easy to carry, cheap. It’s hard to distinguish one from the other, but the fact that these two mega-beers make the list speaks volumes not just about college, but about personal economics. It’s late on a Friday, you and your buddy both have six bucks. You could eat food, or, you could get a 30 pack of Natural Light.
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Malt Liquor
I have seen too, too many Facebook albums with the title “Edward 40 Hands.” And while taping two 40-ounce bottles of malt liquor to your hands is hilarious at the time, it’s not something you should do once you leave school. Maybe not even while in school.

Boone’s Farm
Let’s just cut through the marketing crap: Boone’s Farm is sugar-enhanced alcohol water. With flavors such as Fuzzy Navel, Apple Blossom, and Blue Hawaiian, Boone’s Farm is just the opposite of a good time after college. You are an adult now, buy a malbec. Please.

MD 20/20
Affectionately known as “Mad Dog,” MD 20/20 falls into the same flavored wine category as Boone’s Farm. They are essentially interchangeable. Mad Dog is another sugar wine, and it is another drink you should only see from your rearview mirror upon leaving your dorm room.

Trash Can Punch
Essentially you get a large, five-gallon jug, fill it with Kool-Aid and then it becomes open swim for any and all alcohols in the house. Fact: Nothing good has ever come from a batch of trash can punch. Nothing.

Everclear
Do you remember when this was all the rage in college? And how stupid we all look now that Facebook remembers all of those nights? I’m pretty sure the proof exceeded 7,000 in some cases, or at least it felt like it. Personally, I’m glad this was a short-lived phase.

Anything mixed with Red Bull
I have work to do tomorrow, thanks. I don’t need to be up until 3 a.m. pacing back and forth like a coked-up groupie at Studio 54. Vodka is perfectly alright by itself and it doesn’t need liquid cocaine.

Any drink where you drop a drink into another drink
It’s still popular among certain crowds, but count me out when it comes to dropping drinks into other drinks in order to make something of a super drink. And then you have to chug that super drink, after which you will be hugging the porcelain. We’re looking at you, Jager Bomb.

Jell-O Shots
What was once an easy way to ingest vodka has become a thing of the past to those of us who are 10 years on from our college graduation. Cherry, orange, grape, sour apple…no thanks. We’re good over here.

Fireball
Of all the drinks on this list, this is the one drink I can’t quit; it’s like liquid Brokeback Mountain for me. This cinnamon dominatrix/goddess has been responsible for the following: a bride getting sick on her wedding night, a blackout so intense I think a week passed, and a drunken night where I’m fairly certain I adopted a hamster. See you in hell, Fireball.

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