My Whiskey-onsin Trip

As I've mentioned before, I lived in Wisconsin for five years and took plenty of crap for it from my peoples. There wasn't much to defend, but the boozing scene is unmatched. After all, Wisconsin is the only state in the country where your first DUI isn't a crime - it's just a traffic ticket - and with the permission of the bartender and a parent, any child can drink a beer in any pub in the state. Seriously.

So when I rolled up Thursday in a rental car to do a one-night hit-and-run visit, I knew I was in for it, especially since my boy Raccoon was going to be my road dog, and he's a bartender and fellow lush.

I meet him up for dinner at a supper club with a couple of folks, and down my first Cap'n'coke, which almost brought a tear to my eye. A highball glass loaded with alcohol, and when I handed the bartender a $5 bill, she brought me back $2.75. Compare that to the $10.75 I paid for a double Cap'n'coke in a plastic cup at the "lounge" down the road from my place in Tampa in a frigging strip mall.

After dinner, the mission began. We had to swing by a strip club - the Paradise Club - to see my buddy who works as the doorman. Rac wasn't high on this idea, but I promised him it'd be one round and gone, and there was a solid chance it'd be free. Yet, 15 seconds after we walk in, two feet inside the door, a young lady in some lovely red lingerie who provided me with one of the three best carnal evenings I've ever had spotted me and sashayed over with a huge "We haven't had sex since April and that's a problem" smile on her face.

The "one round and out" plan was on life support.

We take a seat at the bar and I buy a round of Cap'n'cokes as I'm catching up with the manager, the bartender, other folks I know. And Rac is ready to murder me because a dancer came straight over and started prattling in his ear, then made him listen to the voicemail her 13-year-old daughter left asking her to bring home some maxi pads.

I'm waiting for my ladyfriend to come off stage, so we roll dice for the next round. I don't know how common this is, but at most Wisconsin bars, you can play dice against the bartender for drinks. You win, yours is free; they win, you owe him/her a drink and still have to pay for yours. This alone makes drinking in Wisconsin the shizzle. Rac wins and gets a shot of Patron, buys me another drink and all of a sudden the night is taking off.

Three drinks and a shot apiece later (and a promise of a phone call from my flassback), we roll to the next spot, Flagstone, where there's a bartender Rac used to bone. Cute brunette pothead. The cop cars out front made us pause, but I'd promised her I'd come by to say hi, so we pressed on.

Apparently, we'd missed a barfight by a couple minutes. Just our luck.

Homegirl hooks us up with a pair of pints of ice and Captain - the Coke mix must have run out ... or not - and now we're getting somewhere. We slam those and move along to downtown Appleton and a great beer bar, Dr. Jekyll's. This is the kind of place that has beers so exotic and microbrewed that some sell for $20 a bottle. We meet up with a couple of females Rac knows since I'd whiffed on two connections I was supposed to make and the flassback was starting to sound iffy.

This is where ish got serious. Ron, the owner/bartender of Jekyll's, is mad cool and kept thangs movin'. Then my boy D-Rok comes through and it really pops off. Patron shots, straight rum, Jack and coke, Heinekens, vodka and cran, Bacardi and coke ... the beer started flowing like wine, yo. I hit the jukebox and put in WORK: Prince, Beastie Boys, Outkast, Kid Rock, Snoop and God knows what else.

We bounce from there across the street to Jim's Place, a classic bar spot with tons of woodwork, high ceilings and ... games? Oh yes.

Drunk foosball is pretty much unmatched for pure entertainment value, especially when you get to stand right there and make fun of your boy for not only losing to a girl, but getting shut out. Guys, a bit of advice: Don't play bar games when you're trying to impress a girl unless you're halfway decent at them. Losing isn't bad, but embarrassment is.

Ah, bar close. That leads me and Rac back to one of the girls' condo, where we passed out at about 4 am. You will get no details out of me beyond that, although I will say that I'm an ill wingman and I got this text from the condo owner the next day: "On a scale of 1 to 10, you're a 45." Corny as that is, I'll have to take her word for it, cuz I don't remember much of anything beyond last call.

However, said girl had to be at work the next day. So at 7:45 a.m., we find ourselves stumbling to his Saab. Rac says "What now?" And I say one of the stupidest things I can remember saying: "Third-shift bar?"

Appleton is a manufacturing town, and it has a few bars that open at dawn to serve the third-shift factory workers as they get off shift. So at 8:06 a.m., this photo of our breakfast was taken:

Yessir, that's two Captain and Cokes - bloody Marys are for punks. We end up drinking for another three hours, at which point I think I passed out on the bar for a moment.

That encompasses the first 20 hours of my 40 hours or so in Wisconsin (a snowstorm kept me there for another night, which was spent doing some more drinking, although in a more domestic environment). I miss nights - and mornings - like that. Drinking just seems to be more fun when it's cold out than when it's warm. If someone wants to prove me wrong, gimme a holla when you're in Tampa.

Now, I'm off to shift it into high gear for New Year's. The rum bottle is half empty, which means I'm warmed up. The best to you and your peoples, and may God bless you all in 2008. Salud.