Drinking Alone Is Better With Friends

There have been a lot of things cancelled and postponed, but honestly it’s the little events that we miss—getting together with friends after work, dining out with loved ones, or cheering on our favorite team. Those days will be with us again, though!

We might not be out of the woods just yet, but we’re also not walking in circles! There’s a path, however rocky, and as long as we follow it, we’ll get out all right. Luckily, we’re not the only ones on the rocks (yes, we went there)! But how do you celebrate life without a huge group of friends to celebrate with? After all, drinking alone is always better with friends!

Here are a few ideas to keep you going until everyone can once again gather face to face and raise a toast together to say “We did it!”

Cocktails In Place

We’ve teamed up with the Siren Shrub Company, The Bottle Stop, Great Northern Distilling, Copper & Pines Cocktail Co., and Tapped Maple Syrup to bring accessible cocktail recipes right to you via the magic of the internet! Follow any (or all) of us on Facebook and Instagram for weekly recipes, videos, and our own individual variations on a drink theme—and we’re taking suggestions!

Our video for this week drops tonight, but check out what everyone has done so far, and join Siren Shrubs in their private Facebook group Fridays at 6pm for Virtual Happy Hour!

Good friends and bad movies

If you’ve ever watched the old, late-night b-movie shows on TV, like Elvira or Mystery Science Theater 3000, you know how much fun bad movies can be. And while a campy host is a fun guide through an awful movie, the guys on MST3K knew that the best way to watch them was with good friends.

Even if you can’t all be in the room together, have everyone stream the movie at the same time and keep Face Time, Discord, or Google Hangouts open so you can see each other’s reactions and hear everyone’s commentary. Pause as needed to refill your Shorewood Old Fashioned.

Book club

This is a great time to catch up on your reading! If you’ve had a book on loan from a friend that’s been giving you some guilt every time you pass by while it lies unopened on your end table, open it up and explore the story that moved them enough to recommend it.

Give that friend a call, let them know you’re enjoying their book, and ask what they’re reading—then challenge them to a race! Keep a tally of how many pages you’ve read. The first one of you to reach the page count goal wins!

Reconnect

Reconnecting is pretty straightforward—go back through your texts and find the folks at the bottom of the list. They might be people you texted once about buying a cat tower on Craigslist, but if they’re friends, reach out and see how they’re doing. Let them know you’re thinking about them. And it couldn’t hurt to let the Craigslist person know you thought of them, too.

Text games

Start a group text with all the people you usually hang out with. Have everyone text “Not It!”—the last two texts that come through start the game. These two people go through their camera rolls and post the worst photo they can find of each other. Everyone votes on the best bad photo. The loser drinks, and the last two people who voted post the next photos for voting.

A variation on this is to have one person suggest a random, bizarre image (like “dinosaur with lipstick”). Everyone Googles to find the best image they can and post it in the group text. Everyone votes—the best image gets praise, and the worst image has to drink. Unless, of course, you’re drinking Northern Oasis Spirits, in which case drinking is the reward. 😉

Would we rather play these games face to face? Of course! But for now, we’ll have to enjoy each other’s company through a screen. We’re just glad we have the technology to do it these days, whether it’s video chatting, Words With Friends, or crazy texts. One thing we’re sure of is that nothing lasts forever. And right now, that’s a comfort! Soon enough we’ll be back to our favorite bar or restaurant, hanging out with our favorite people, and laughing about that one time we texted this image to the entire group:

We regret nothing.