Sink the TV Show Host

Have you ever wondered what it would look like if Rachael Ray got drunk off the BrewDog Sink the Bismarck? And at 11a.m. in the morning? Well then all your questions have been answered! (Go find new ones – and better ones.) In this clip, originally aired in May but re-aired yesterday, Rachael Ray and Sofia Vergara toss back a couple of cold ones and wonder if Sink the Bismarck goes too far. Or at least that’s what the segment is supposed to be about, though it mainly consists of facial contortions and cries of pain (apparently alcohol tastes like burning). If you hate Rachael Ray, you’ll love this.

Why bring this up? Mainly because it amuses me that Sink the Bismarck was talked about on daytime television. There are lots of strong opinions floating around about BrewDog but you can’t argue with that fact that they know how to get lots of publicity. Sure, the Rachael Ray audience is probably not their target demographic, but maybe housewives are looking for a new way to get drunk during the daytime.  (For the record, it was Soph who told me about the clip, though I wouldn’t mind the life of a drunk housewife.)

The segment also reveals a lot about North American beer culture, though mainly the negative aspects. Did anyone else yell at their computer when they saw that the beers weren’t poured out of their bottles? People, this is 41% alcohol. Do you drink your other spirits straight from the bottle? (Unless you are the rock group Drive-by Truckers, who like to pass around a bottle of Jack Daniels during their shows, the answer should be no.) No wonder all you can taste is the alcohol. And why didn’t they split a bottle? Would you ever pour yourself 340mL of brandy or scotch? This is a beer meant to be split between a couple of people, not a Bud downed in some dorm room drinking game. Have some common sense and don’t treat this like a normal drink.

I also loathe the comment about drinking less with the assumption that it would mean fewer calories.  My guess is that you’d be drinking roughly the same number of calories to get drunk off a light beer or Sink the Bismarck. The North American obsession with calories will always make craft beer a hard sell to those who care about the evil, though admittedly real, beer belly. Drinking less, it seems, is simply not an option. It gets really deflating when calories trump quality as the main factor in peoples decision about what beer to drink. Or when Rachael Ray is drinking Sink the Bismarck and I can’t get my hands on any.