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Author Topic:   Cocktails
indiedan
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posted January 03, 2007 11:00 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for indiedan   Click Here to Email indiedan     Edit/Delete Message
Resolution to drink less goes awry — already
Myriad of conflicting medical studies are enough to drive this writer to drink
By Diane Mapes
MSNBC contributor
Updated: 5:15 a.m. PT Jan 3, 2007
The fruitcake’s been digested, the gift cards are empty, and now it’s time to face the most grueling holiday task of all: the annual reassessment. Do I need to exercise more? Spend less? Set aside more quality time for friends and family? The resolution list goes on and on — much like that interminable karaoke version of “Santa Baby” at this year’s holiday party.

Unfortunately, since I was the one holding the microphone, this year’s resolution seems painfully clear: Cut back on the alcohol intake.

Not that I drink a lot — usually just a glass of wine with dinner, if that — but I’ve read that even one drink a day can adversely affect my health.

Also, a recent study by the Mayo Clinic found that women’s bodies are less adept at breaking down alcohol than men’s. As a result, the more we drink, the more we risk heart disease, cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, and, perhaps the most chilling side effect of all — kissing our skinny jeans goodbye forever.

But how much alcohol is too much? There’s the rub. The answer seems to depend on which study you read. The Mayo Clinic study says one drink a day is OK for “younger women who aren’t planning a pregnancy” and that “postmenopausal women should limit themselves to less.” But what about those of us who don’t fit in either category?

Looking for a definitive answer, I turned to another study, this one conducted by a group of doctors at Stony Brook University in New York. But their finding that drinking three glasses of red wine a week reduces the risk of colorectal cancer only confused matters further.

Who to believe?
Should I cut back on alcohol entirely in order to fend off heart disease, liver problems and dreaded weight gain (not to mention potential blackmail opportunities by family, friends and co-workers) or suck down three or more glasses a week to keep the colorectal cancer at bay?

Or should I listen to the doctors the Goteborg University in Sweden, who found that mice that had ingested low levels of alcohol on a daily basis showed a significantly lower risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis than mice that just drank water. Obsessed, I started digging through medical journals and online health stories until the studies began to stack up like swizzle sticks at a company-hosted bar.

In London, researchers found that people who drank alcohol have a lower risk of developing non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, but the risk of cancer of the mouth, esophagus and liver actually increases.


At Ohio State University, a study showed that drinking moderately (such as a couple of drinks a day) improved the memories of laboratory rats, although a study at the University of Missouri declared that alcohol hindered academic success.

Live longer so you can die young
Adding it all up, it seems that by drinking alcohol I can both reduce my chances of heart disease and increase my risk for high blood pressure, fend off dementia while upping my chances for brain damage, boost my memory at the same time that I become more stupid, avoid lymphoma while veering towards breast and liver cancer, and in general, both live longer and die younger.

In other words, alcohol is every bit the hazy hypocritical demon it’s always been (especially when there’s a microphone involved). So this year, I’m taking another resolution route altogether. Instead of squelching my alcohol intake, I’m going to cut out karaoke — and perhaps limit my medical studies to just one per day with dinner, if that.

Diane Mapes is a Seattle freelance writer and author of the recently released "How to Date in a Post-Dating World."

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indiedan
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posted May 29, 2007 09:31 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for indiedan   Click Here to Email indiedan     Edit/Delete Message
Barton Rushed to Hospital


Actress Mischa Barton was rushed to hospital last night , after suffering a bad reaction to medication. The former O.C. star had been enjoying herself at a friend's Memorial Day barbecue in Los Angeles, but began feeling ill after having a few cocktails, reports TMZ.com. She was taken to a local hospital before doctors sent her home with strict instructions to rest. A representative for the 21-year-old said Barton was at home with family and is "feeling much better".

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fred
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posted June 16, 2007 05:47 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for fred   Click Here to Email fred     Edit/Delete Message
Happy Bloomsday! If you're an illiterate alcoholic - which I suspect is most of the people on this board - then let me explain. Bloomsday is the day that James Joyce's Ulysses takes place - June 16, 1905. But, of course, we get drunk every night - so it's not as special to those who only get drunk on June 16.

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NEWSFLASH
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posted October 24, 2007 10:59 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for NEWSFLASH   Click Here to Email NEWSFLASH     Edit/Delete Message
Combs Turns Vodka Promoter


Sean "Diddy" Combs has added another business venture to his empire - the music mogul has signed a multi-year contract to promote vodka. The rapper has agreed to promote Ciroc vodka for a 50 percent share of any profits. Combs, who also has clothing and perfume lines, will be responsible for marketing the brand. He says, "I'm not just a celebrity endorser, I'm a brand builder. I'm a luxury brand builder." The new deal could be worth more than $100 million for Combs, depending on how well the brand performs - and he means business: "It is not an endorsement deal. This is something that will have my daily attention."

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NEWSFLASH
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posted November 01, 2007 01:00 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for NEWSFLASH   Click Here to Email NEWSFLASH     Edit/Delete Message
I should imagine there will be cocktails this weekend. Like every weekend.

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kcchief
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posted December 02, 2007 09:26 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for kcchief   Click Here to Email kcchief     Edit/Delete Message
Yes.

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fred
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posted December 12, 2007 03:05 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for fred   Click Here to Email fred     Edit/Delete Message
Man nearly dies downing vodka at airport 2 hours, 37 minutes ago


A man nearly died from alcohol poisoning after quaffing two pints of vodka at an airport security check instead of handing it over to comply with new rules about carrying liquids aboard a plane, police said Wednesday.

The incident occurred Tuesday at the Nuremberg airport, where the 64-year-old man was switching planes on his way home to Dresden from a vacation in Egypt.

New airport rules prohibit passengers from carrying larger quantities of liquid onto planes, and he was told at a security check he would have to either throw out the bottle of vodka or pay a fee to have his carry-on bag checked.

Instead, he chugged the vodka — and was quickly unable to stand or otherwise function, police said.

A doctor called to the scene determined he had possibly life-threatening alcohol poisoning, and he was sent to a Nuremberg clinic for treatment. The man, whose name was not released, is expected to be able to go home in a few days.

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NEWSFLASH
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posted December 28, 2007 02:30 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for NEWSFLASH   Click Here to Email NEWSFLASH     Edit/Delete Message
Aniston Dashes Pregnancy Rumour with a Christmas Martini


A Christmas Eve night out with best pal Courteney Cox has wrecked a U.S. news exclusive claiming Jennifer Aniston is pregnant. The National Enquirer report that Aniston, 38, is expecting, but her publicist has denied the rumor. In a simple statement, he says, "She is not pregnant." And the story seems to have fallen flat around Christmas - Us Weekly magazine reports Aniston was spotted drinking martinis at Mastro's in Beverly Hills with Cox and her husband David Arquette on 24 December, a week after the actress had her hair colored by stylist Michael Canali. Both drinking and hair dying are strict no-nos for expectant moms.

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fred
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posted April 08, 2008 09:28 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for fred   Click Here to Email fred     Edit/Delete Message
21st-birthday booze ritual gains popularity
Survey: Drinking 21 shots is more common than previously thought
By Tara Parker-Pope
The New York Times
updated 5:49 a.m. PT, Tues., April. 8, 2008

The ritual of drinking 21 or more alcoholic beverages to celebrate the 21st birthday appears to be far more common than expected, according to new research.

Jesse Drews died in March on his 21st birthday after a drinking binge. It's estimated that more than four out of every five American 21-year-olds drink alcohol to celebrate the birthday milestone, which is the the legal drinking age in the United States. But a new study from University of Missouri researchers of 2,518 students shows that many young adults aren't just drinking to celebrate — they are drinking to extremes.

Among those students who drank alcohol to celebrate their 21st birthdays, 34 percent of the men and 24 percent of the women reported consuming 21 or more drinks, according to the research to be published in The Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. The report is believed to be the largest study of the drinking ritual, which often involves shots of alcohol. The students in the study were followed for four years and asked a variety of questions about their drinking behavior over the course of their time in college. Although the findings likely can't be applied to the general population, the data likely do reflect the drinking culture at large, public universities, say researchers.

Based on the data, researchers estimated that half of the men and more than a third of the women who drank on their birthdays experienced blood alcohol levels of 0.26 or higher, the level at which a person is severely impaired and at risk for choking on vomit or suffering serious injury. While researchers say it's possible some students overstated how much they actually drank, the consistency of the answers suggests that students are consuming large quantities of alcohol when they celebrate a 21st birthday.

"I think a lot of people view this as a feel-good rite of passage and don't calibrate what a big risk it is,'' said Kenneth Sher, professor of psychological sciences at the University of Missouri-Columbia and the study's lead author.

Alcohol researchers have been searching for ways to curb the extreme drinking common on the 21st birthday. One concern is that interest in the ritual appears to be spreading because drinkers who attempt or succeed at downing 21 drinks post videos and photos of the drinking binges on YouTube or Flickr or social networking sites like MySpace.

One of the biggest worries about the ritual is alcohol poisoning. The body's ability to metabolize alcohol depends on several factors, including gender, weight, the type of alcohol, whether the person vomits during the binge and the time period during which the alcohol is consumed. But in some cases, as few as 10 drinks can push blood alcohol levels to 0.30, the point at which the respiratory system slows enough that death is possible.

That appears to be what happened to Jesse Drews, a 21-year-old Fox Lake, Wis., resident who died on March 24, his 21st birthday. Although the death is still under investigation, it's believed he may have attempted to drink 21 shots to celebrate at a Waupun, Wis., tavern. A friend who brought him home said he had "10 or 12 shots,'' although his parents have since been told different stories about how much alcohol was consumed.

What is known is that his family found him unresponsive at 4 a.m., and a hospital test showed a blood alcohol level of 0.38, according to his family and the Dodge County Sheriff's Office. Waupun police chief Dale Heeringa said he couldn't comment on the details of the investigation until the medical examiner's report is finished. He said Mr. Drews did not finish 21 shots, although he did consume "a significant amount of alcohol.''

Jesse's mother, Jody Drews, said her son had been reluctant to go out that night but relented after friends persuaded him. He returned home around 1:15 a.m. and went to bed, and Mrs. Drews checked on him throughout the night, including around 3:30 a.m., when she heard him snoring and returned to bed.

"I never in a million years thought we would be in this situation,'' Mrs. Drews said. "Kids have to know about this risk. I hope anybody who goes into a bar and sees this happening will say something.''

Clayton Neighbors, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington Center for the Study of Health and Risk Behaviors in Seattle, is studying Internet-based interventions he hopes will convince more young people to moderate their drinking on their 21st birthdays. In one study of 316 students, to be presented at the American Psychological Association conference this year, those who were given Web-based information about drinking prior to their 21st birthday drank less than students who didn't receive the information.

Students in the intervention group were asked how much they planned to drink on their 21st birthday and how common they believed extreme drinking really is. The interactive tool then showed them that only a minority of students drink 21 or more drinks. It also calculated a student's blood alcohol level based on the amount he or she planned to drink. Giving students extra information about drinking appeared to result in blood alcohol levels that were about 25 percent lower than the group that wasn't given the information, he said.

"One of the problems is a lot of these kids don't realize that 21 drinks in an hour can kill you,'' Dr. Neighbors said.

One group, Be Responsible About Drinking (B.R.A.D.), was started by family and friends of Michigan State University student Bradley McCue, who died from extreme drinking on his 21st birthday. The group sends out birthday cards prior to the 21st birthday warning people about the dangers of alcohol poisoning. The site also includes numerous charts showing how various numbers of drinks affect blood alcohol levels. For a more detailed look at the 21st birthday drinking binge, see an earlier story by my colleague Kate Zernike.

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fred
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posted May 07, 2008 05:37 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for fred   Click Here to Email fred     Edit/Delete Message
But the cocktails thread seems to work - that's the important one.

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fred
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posted July 18, 2008 03:38 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for fred   Click Here to Email fred     Edit/Delete Message
Loud bar music makes you drink more
Cranking up volume made drinkers down a glass of beer 3 minutes faster
Reuters
updated 2:57 p.m. PT, Fri., July. 18, 2008

LONDON - Customers of bars that play loud music drink more quickly and in fewer gulps, French researchers said on Friday.

Their study, published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, found that turning up the music spurred drinkers to down a glass of beer about three minutes more quickly.

To gauge the effect of sound levels on drinking, the team spent three Saturday nights visiting two bars, where they observed 40 men aged between 18 and 25 drinking beer.

“We have shown that environmental music played in a bar is associated with an increase in drinking,” Nicolas Gueguen, a behavioral sciences researcher at the University of Southern Brittany in France, who led the study, said in a statement.

With help from the bars’ owners, the team turned the music up and down and then recorded how much and how fast people drank. The men did not know they were being observed.

Louder music spurred more consumption, with the average number of drinks ordered by patrons rising to 3.4 drinks from 2.6 drinks, Gueguen found. The time taken to drink a beer fell to an average 11.45 minutes from 14.51 minutes.

The researchers acknowledged some limitations to their study, for example that the experiment was on a small scale and could not be applied to every bar.

They said it was not clear why louder music appeared to increase alcohol consumption but said it might make conversation more difficult, forcing people to drink more and talk less.

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HollywoodProducer
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posted August 14, 2008 09:35 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for HollywoodProducer   Click Here to Email HollywoodProducer     Edit/Delete Message
A Growth Export for Britain: Boozing By CATHERINE MAYER / LONDON
1 hour, 53 minutes ago


What are the key components of Britishness? The bulldog spirit? A stiff upper lip? Or a penchant for Sex on the Beach? With Britain locked in an identity crisis (the English feel English, the Welsh, Welsh and some Scots are so eager to assert their Scottishness that they want to disunite the United Kingdom), these questions are troubling Prime Minister Gordon Brown. He's made the promotion of Britishness a core theme of his leadership and is even writing a book on the subject. Quintessential British qualities, he has said, include: "Our belief in tolerance and liberty ... Our commitment to fairness, fair play and civic duty."


Oddly, Brown overlooked another fundament of Britishness: alcohol-fueled misbehavior. Booze culture unites Britons from Land's End in southwestern England to John O'Groats at the northeastern tip of Scotland, and it's also one of the U.K.'s best-known exports. In sun spots such as Ibiza, Mallorca, the Canary Islands, Spain and Greece, English, Welsh and Scottish holidaymakers raucously intermingle, indistinguishable from each other in their bright leisure wear and brighter sunburns, downing alcoholic concoctions such as Sex on the Beach, sometimes as a prelude to the act itself.


Britons have long suffered from a loutish image abroad. The violent antics of British football supporters, a widespread contempt for foreign cuisines and cultures - none of these foibles have burnished Britain's international reputation. That may seem unfair to the many impeccably behaved Brits who travel without incident every year. But a newly published report into British behavior abroad suggests that more Britons than ever are flying the flag of obnoxiousness in foreign climes. The report reveals a steep increase in arrests of Brits overseas: 33% in Spain and 42% in France over the previous year. "Many arrests are due to behavior caused by excessive drinking," the report states. "We are concerned that drink does play a part in a number of these situations," Meg Munn, a minister in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which published the report, told the BBC.


Unpublished research based on a survey of 3003 British, German and Spanish tourists to Ibiza and Mallorca in 2007 shows that rowdiness isn't the sole preserve of Britons. British respondents were marginally less likely to indulge in casual sex than their continental counterparts. Still, almost a third of them did; they had a greater appetite for drugs and were also the undisputed champions of drinking and fighting, with 60% of the Brits returning from Mallorca reporting that they'd been drunk on at least five days of their one-week holiday, compared to 41% of Germans and only 6% of Spanish. More than 7% of Britons, meanwhile, had been involved in a fracas, compared with 3.6% of Germans and just 2.3% of Spanish. Mark Bellis, Professor of Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University which conducted the research with the European Institute of Studies on Prevention, says that "people from all the countries we've looked at have increased levels of alcohol use when they're traveling abroad - they're treating every night like a Friday or Saturday night. The reality, unfortunately, is that the levels of drunkenness among Britons are higher, and that's led to some of the alcohol-related problems we're familiar with."


The full research will be published this autumn in two journals, the European Journal of Public Health and European Addiction Research, and will doubtless be pored over by politicians and officials keen to find a cure for the British malaise. Change won't be easy, though. Pubs and clubs, boozing and late-night curries: these are core elements of British culture. Freed from bad habits, the nation would certainly be healthier, possibly happier. But would it still be Britain? View this article on Time.com

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indiedan
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posted September 01, 2008 09:38 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for indiedan   Click Here to Email indiedan     Edit/Delete Message
Hathaway Hits Bottle For Old Roles

1 September 2008 8:59 AM, PDT

Actress Anne Hathaway knows how to look old and haggard for a role - she gets drunk the night before filming.

The Devil Wears Prada star makes sure she goes into work hungover every time she needs to shoot scenes where her character looks worn out.

She says, "We were filming a take once where my character had aged. We had tried shooting a few scenes and we all still looked fairly young underneath all of our make-up.

"So we were just trying out ideas and I suggested, 'What if we got drunk the night before and came in feeling hung over the next day? I think we would come in feeling a bit rough and maybe that would make us a little tired and have a little less energy so we look older.'

"So we all did it and it worked. Now I swear by it."

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indiedan
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posted September 12, 2008 09:19 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for indiedan   Click Here to Email indiedan     Edit/Delete Message
Butler: 'Booze Made Me Crazy'

12 September 2008 9:03 AM, PDT

Scottish actor Gerard Butler was so wild in his youth he was convinced he would die young.

The RocknRolla star gave up alcohol in his mid-20s because he would go off the rails when he was drunk.

And his behaviour was so outrageous that he feared he would end up dead.

Butler tells British magazine Marie Claire, "I was totally wild. I would headbutt walls, punch walls. I was a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. But I could also be Mr Entertaining - people would say, 'You're hilarious!'.

"But I definitely had a suicide wish. I once woke up in Paris at 4am, five miles from where I'd been at a party. I had gashes to my head, my face, my arms, and I had blood all over my clothes. To this day, I don't know what happened."

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fred
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posted December 04, 2008 05:17 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for fred   Click Here to Email fred     Edit/Delete Message
White Russians Arise, This Time at a Bowling Alley

By STEVEN KURUTZ

AMONG the significant dates in the history of Kahlúa, the Mexican coffee liqueur, surely March 6, 1998, rates a mention.

That was the release date of “The Big Lebowski,” the Coen Brothers movie about an aging slacker who calls himself the Dude, and who, after a thug urinates on his prized rug, becomes caught up in a Chandleresque mystery.

Played with slouchy brio by Jeff Bridges, the Dude’s chief pursuits involve bowling, avoiding work and drinking White Russians, the sweet cocktail made with vodka, Kahlúa and cream or milk.

The movie was a flop when it was released, but in the decade since, “The Big Lebowski” has attracted a cult following, and as the film’s renown has grown, so has the renown of the White Russian, or, as the Dude calls them, “Caucasians.” The drink is the subject of experimentation at cutting-edge bars like Tailor, in SoHo, which serves a crunchy dehydrated version — a sort of White Russian cereal. The British electro-pop band Hot Chip, meanwhile, recently invented a variation named the Black Tarantula. Not long ago, the cocktail was considered passé and often likened, in its original formula, to an alcoholic milkshake.

“When I first encountered it in the 1970s, the White Russian was something real alcoholics drank, or beginners,” said David Wondrich, the drinks correspondent for Esquire. Now, ordering the drink is “the mark of the hipster,” he said.

Americans’ renewed appreciation for coffee, spurred by Starbucks, which now markets its own coffee liqueur, may have also contributed to the White Russian’s comeback.

To see the White Russian renaissance in full bloom, it is instructive to attend a Lebowski Fest, the semiannual gatherings where fans of the movie revel in the Dude’s deeply casual approach to life. There, the White Russian is consumed in oil-tanker quantities.

This was much in evidence at a fest held last month in New York, where 1,000 or so “achievers,” as the movie’s buffs call themselves, took over Lucky Strike Lanes, a bowling alley in Manhattan. The White Russian demand was such that, in addition to two bars, a White Russian satellite station had been set up and bartenders were in back mixing vats of reinforcements.

It turned out that management was following a directive from the event’s organizers. “When we line up a venue, we always have the White Russian talk,” said Will Russell, a founder of the Lebowski Fest.

Mr. Russell has learned from experience to lay in provisions. He recalled an incident at an early festival in his hometown of Louisville, Ky.

“Milk sold out within a one-mile radius of the bowling alley” where the event was held, he said. “We had to go to every local mini-market and gas station to satisfy the requirements of the achievers.”

At Lucky Strike Lanes, the line at the White Russian station was often 10 deep, and it wasn’t uncommon for someone to sidle up to the counter and say, “I’ll take four.” The bartender would lift a 12-quart plastic tub, straining to hold it steady as the mud-colored liquid sloshed.

Several people were dressed in character, including four men who showed up as white Russians: white painter pants, white T-shirts, brown fuzzy hats. Each drank their namesake, except one guy, who nursed a bottle of Miller Lite. “I’m lactose intolerant,” he said.

The White Russian is not for the faint of stomach. “The cream is going to build up,” said Ted Haigh, the author of “Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails.” “If you’re drinking these all night, the sugar will build, too, and you’ll have a hell of a hangover.”

If not an expanded waistline. A popular deviation is the Slim Russian, made with either soy or low-fat milk.

Still, some prefer the drink precisely because it is so rich. “I’m one of those fat guys that guzzle milk by the gallon,” said Steve Barber, 28, an antique motorcycle restorer from Saugerties, N.Y., who was attending his first Lebowski Fest and came dressed in a flak vest like the Dude’s Vietnam veteran buddy, Walter. Unlike a lot of Lebowski fans, Mr. Barber has a taste for the drink that predates his viewing of the movie. Several years ago, he said, he used to mix himself a White Russian every day for breakfast: “I called it the ‘Big Boy Milkshake.’ “

Lebowski viewers often develop a taste for White Russians that carries beyond the film or the festivals.

“I’d had them before, but not regularly,” said Don Plehn, 39, a district court clerk from Baltimore. “I drink a lot more of them now.” Mr. Plehn took a sip of his third White Russian of the night and said, “It’s a slow-sippin’ drink.”

Lebowski adherents may have vaulted the White Russian to icon status, but serious cocktail enthusiasts still deride it for being simplistic and overly sweet — a confection designed to appeal to unserious drinkers.

“It’s hard to think of a more boring drink, except, perhaps, when it’s spraying from the Dude’s mouth,” said Martin Doudoroff, a historian for CocktailDB.com.

Skeptics like Mr. Doudoroff would probably blanch at a variation called the White Trash Russian. “You take a bottle of Yoo-hoo,” Mr. Russell said, “drink half, then fill it with vodka and enjoy.”

Believed to date to the 1950s or early 1960s, the White Russian has no great origin story; its culinary precursor is the Alexander. Having been popular in the disco ’70s, the cocktail is, in the words of Mr. Doudoroff, “a relic of an era that was the absolute nadir of the American bar.”

As it happens, this was the period when Jeff Dowd was living in Seattle, driving a taxi and doing a lot of “heavy hanging,” as he put it. Mr. Dowd, 59, an independent film producer and producers representative, is the inspiration for the Dude — a character Joel and Ethan Coen created by taking what Mr. Dowd was like back then and exaggerating a bit, although the White Russians preference is spot on.

“There was a woman I lived with named Connie,” Mr. Dowd said, by phone from his office in Santa Monica, Calif., beginning a rambling oration that was highly Dude-like. “She and her boyfriend, Jamie, were mixologists. We were hanging out and drinking at that time. We went from White Russians to Dirty Mothers, a darker version of a White Russian. It was a very hedonistic period.”

Mr. Dowd moved on from White Russians years ago, but has started drinking them again, mainly so as not to disappoint fans. “When I first met Cheech at the Sundance Film Festival,” he said, referring to Cheech Marin of the comedy duo Cheech and Chong, “the first thing we all wanted to do is smoke a joint with him so we could tell our grandchildren, ‘Hey, I smoked a joint with Cheech.’ Well, people want to say they had a White Russian with the Dude. I don’t want to turn them down, which has added a little extra tonnage to me.”

It has become customary for achievers to scrutinize “The Big Lebowski,” parsing the film’s most trivial details for deep meaning. Which begs the question: Why is the White Russian the Dude’s chosen beverage, beyond the fact that Mr. Dowd briefly drank the cocktail years ago? Theories abound.

“The Dude is very laid-back and the White Russian has a laid-back element,” Mr. Russell said. “You can’t just grab it and go. There’s a ritual to it.”

Mr. Barber said: “The Dude almost holds himself to a higher class than he’s in, which could explain the White Russian. It requires more thought than just popping a top.”

Then again, the reason could be even simpler.

“When I do drink a White Russian, it does go down easy,” Mr. Dowd said. “It actually is a good drink. It’s essentially a liquefied ice cream cone that you can buy in a bar.”

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