Gatorwine Is A Millennial College Fever Dream

If there’s one drink trend that really stood out to me during the early 2010s, when I was in college, it’s the idea that an alcoholic beverage could—and should—have multiple functions. The primary function is, of course, to get you drunk. The secondary function was often energy (or nauseating anxiety, in my case) from caffeine: Think original Four Lokos and vodka Red Bull.

But one such multi-functional drink from my college era was not about energy at all but rather hydration. It was light blue Gatorade and Pinot Grigio, and it was the brainchild of my roommate, who insisted it would prevent hangovers by ensuring one was simultaneously hydrating and dehydrating themselves while drinking it, creating a sort of binge-drinking equilibrium.

Dreadful though it may sound, the combo actually wasn’t a bad one. The cheap grocery store Pinot Grigio she used basically tasted like slightly bitter lemon water, and the flavor of the Gatorade was essentially all one tasted after a single glass of the stuff. Admittedly, though, it was a drink I only indulged in once or twice after successfully debunking the hangover prevention claims.

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So imagine my shock when I log onto god’s internet and see that “Gatorwine” is trending. A viewer of Andrew Rea’s popular YouTube cooking show, Babish Culinary Universe, submitted a recipe to the show consisting of equal parts Gatorwide and cheap red wine. Interestingly, the viewer suggested using the light blue Glacier Freeze flavor of Gatorade, just like my college roommate used, though opting for a fuller-bodied version of the drink by using red wine instead of white.

Rea seemed to enjoy the drink, saying, “In a very disgusting, perverse way, I like it.” And others seem to agree—this combo actually tastes decent together. Sure, it might not be for everyone, but it’s seriously not as bad as it might sound. This drink doesn’t exactly capture a wine’s complexity, but that’s not really what anyone’s going for here. Rather, it’s a mildly flavored, non-threatening sipper even the most wine-averse can appreciate—which is probably why it appealed so much to college students who weren’t exactly ready to start drinking their whiskey neat.

The Gatorwine trend strikes me as interesting, though, because it just seems to have that post-2008 recession feel to it: It’s accessible, cheap, “random” (to use the parlance of the time), kind of cheeky. Maybe if we were all a little bit more online during those times, my roommate’s white wine version could’ve had its moment in the limelight too.

I, for one, am no longer especially concerned with chugging electrolytes while I drink because, at some point while my frontal lobe was developing, I realized that the best way to avoid a hangover is to just not drink that much in the first place. But I still love the sentiment of mixing Gatorade and cheap wine; despite its virality now, in 2024, it makes me nostalgic for a simpler—albeit perhaps similar—time. I’m probably not going to go out of my way to pick up an $11 red and a light blue Gatorade. But if someone mixed up a Gatorwine for me, served in a thick-rimmed wine glass with a single ice cube floating in the glass, I don’t think I’d turn it down, either.

Samantha Maxwell is a food writer and editor based in Boston. Follow her on Twitter at @samseating.