Budget Bar - Introducing the Hobo Mimosa

Zack and I are in our mid to late twenties (his mid and my late) and the main form of entertainment among people who don't have kids in our age group seems to be going out to bars to have a few drinks and to socialize.  Admittedly, we don't do that very often.  It's more like, "Hm, do we want to spend $50.00 on a night out or do we want to save it and use it towards a downpayment on a house or on paying down our credit cards..."  This isn't to say that our bar-going friends are fiscally irresponsible.  I'm basically just saying that we're tightwads.  That being said, we still like to cut loose a little bit on weekends.

There are a lot of ways around having to spend a lot of money.  The main one is to invite your friends over for a dance party at your house.  Or, when that fails, to have a dance party with the cats.  Another really important thing to do is NOT spend too much money on fancy beverages.  There are some perfectly good options on the market and I've been getting into trying out different malt liquor beverages.  My favorite is the Mike's Mango Punch.  Not so disgusting that it will make you sick (it's actually pretty tasty), but not so expensive that you're going to regret buying one (or two) the next morning.

There is, of course, a fine line between intelligent frugality and doing something gross for the sake of being cheap.  I crossed that line this weekend.

On the way home from work, we decided to stop at the BP by our house.  Usually, we go to the Speedway across the street and that's where I get my Mike's Mango Punch.  At the BP, they didn't have it, so I started searching for the next best thing and I thought I had found it in a 24 ounce can of Blueberry Pomegranate Blast .... by Colt 45.  I remember a few weeks ago that Zack had bought a can of regular Colt 45 and I tasted some of it and described as tasting like pennies and ass.  I'm not sure why I thought this would be a much different experience, but I bought it anyways.  See that horse butt right under the logo?  I don't think it's there by accident.  Regardless, I got this thing home, cracked it open and took a big old sip.  It was, as you can imagine, utterly disgusting.  So disgusting, in fact, that I ended up pouring it down the sink, despite my strong dislike for wasting anything.  I didn't pour it down the sink before suggesting that Zack try it as well.

So there it is, folks.  Go cheap, but don't go this  cheap.

Now that I've sufficiently explained what not to do with your adult beverage money, I would like to clue you into a lovely beverage that I would like to believe that my college friends and I invented (maybe we didn't, who knows):  The Hobo Mimosa.

The hobo mimosa is perfect for when you'd like a lot of beverage at once, but you don't want to pay a lot for it.  Ever hear of a brass monkey?  Where you drink a Mickey's down to the label and then fill it back up with orange juice?  It's a lot like that only using a King Cobra.  Unfortunately, we weren't able to find a King Cobra, so we used the Champagne of Beers instead (figuring it would make it more mimosa-like).  For your enjoyment, here is a brief picture tutorial on how to make a Hobo Mimosa.

1.  Obtain a 40 oz of some sort of very cheap, light beer or of some sort of malt liquor.  Obtain a smaller  amount of orange juice as well.  We would strongly suggest going the pulp-free route, as pulp in a 40 is pretty gross.

2.  Drink it down to where the label on a bottle of King Cobra would be (unless you are using King Cobra, in which case drink it down to the label.  As you can see in this photo, the "label area" on the ol' Champagne of Beers is slightly above where the actual label is.  Use your discretion, I guess.  Once you've gotten the level of cheap beer or malt liquor to the correct spot, start filling the empty space with orange juice.

3.  The resulting concoction should look something like this.  It's perfect for summer, serves at least one person (for the entire evening, usually) and costs only about $5.00 start to finish.

I know what you may be thinking, internet.  "That's not very classy."  Well, it's not supposed to be that classy.  It's supposed to get the job done with a minimum amount of collateral damage.  Besides, it only becomes seriously un-classy when you're wandering around the parking lot of the post office and yelling at cars.*



*we did not do either of these things.