kot-headerlogo-01 A U

See Games Differently

Subscribe

16 Drinks For Gamer Parties

Alex Walker Avatar
Alex Walker

We’re coming up to New Year’s and as most people look for options to avoid the crowds and debacle of the city around fireworks time, smaller gatherings and house parties are often the favoured way to see out the new year.

So if you’re going to spend some time with friends over the NYE break, why not whip up some gaming drinks to mark the occasion?

This story has been updated since its original publication.

Gamer drinks can be great fun, especially since it opens up a whole world of colour and liquor that, in an ordinary night of drinking, you’d probably avoid. I’m talking bright blue Alize shots. Baileys. Radioactive green muck. Absinthe.

Actually, I’m totally fine with absinthe.

But still, the question was: what kind of gamer drinks do you make for a party? And what do you call them?

Doing a quick whiparound our nerdy office, and reaching back into my memory and thinking about the various kinds of drinks I’ve had at Barcraft events and other house parties, we came up with a handy list.

Small note: please drink responsibly and all that. I don’t want to get emailed because someone got messy on a drink they made from here and ended up in hospital somehow. Look after yourselves.

The Vampire: This one’s way more involved, but the effect is fantastic. After making some fake blood – which is basically sugar, water, red food colouring and corn syrup (but you can replace that with an equal quantity of granulated sugar) – you mix equal amounts blood orange juice, pomegranate juice and vodka. Mix in a cocktail shaker with ice and pour into a cocktail or martini glass. It’s originally themed for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but you could easily rebrand this around Legacy of Kain or Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines.

Not The Bees: A honey-based cocktail to go with long rounds of Smash where everyone throws bees at each other. If made individually, mix 25ml of gin (not dry) with equal parts lemon juice and 20ml of honey. Top with prosecco and, if you want to be fancy, add a twig of lavender.

Rad-X: A bright green Fallout themed cocktail jug, in case you wanted to have something larger ready for guests. Add 1 1/2 cups white rum and 1/3 cup lime juice to 4 cups of passion fruit juice and 1 1/2 cups of mint leaves to a blender. You can also add a 1/4 cup of sugar syrup, although I find you can often do with less (but if you can’t be arsed, just use a couple of teaspoons of caster sugar).

Devil’s Kiss (from Bioshock Infinite): A highball featuring lemonade, bitters, cinnamon, chambord, spiced rum as well as overproof rum, ginger beer and a touch of grenadine. Full breakdown of quantities can be found on the Drunken Moogle.

Sonic The Hedgeshot: A largely blue-themed shot, starring four parts of blue curacao, one part grenadine and a couple parts menthomint schnapps. Pour the grenadine, followed by the schanpps and curacao.

Hadouken: An obvious choice for a shot, you could make this based on Fireball whisky (or the JD equivalent that’s come out over the last couple of years), blue curacao and a touch of Bacardi 151. The Bacardi is just for the end; that’s the bit you light on fire. Obviously, do so safely at home.

The Traveller: A drink that glows in the dark thanks to the quinine in tonic water, this one’s a Destiny-themed cocktail from YouTuber Cristina Viseu. Besides the tonic, you’ll need blackberry syrup for the effect, curacao and some gin. Sphere molds are nice, but you can probably get by without them.

Estus Flask: Can’t not have a Dark Souls drink, given that Mark is my boss. Even though he doesn’t drink. Which is too bad. Everyone else can enjoy the results of Smirnoff Gold vodka, bitters, apple juice and elderflower cordial. Another option is to use that bison grass vodka and Nudie apple juice, which will give the drink more of an apple crumble-taste.

Crash Brandy Shoots: A creation of my mate Pete, I have absolutely no idea what you would put in this one. I suppose if you’re leveraging the good name of Crash Bandicoot, you want to keep it classic. Equal parts brandy to Benedictine would probably do the trick.

The Quantum: A Fallout inspired creation that also leverages the glowing properties of quinine, this one requires a bit of setup and is good for small house parties. Having some spare freezer space for glasses also helps. I’ll let Youtuber Crazy Gnome explain the rest:

Phoenix Fire Wine: A staple of D&D equipment, Phoenix Fire Wine is based off fermented red grapes, blackberries and spices. That’s according to flavour text I found online, anyway. If you want to try a spin on the fire wine in real life, Tasty has an easy to follow recipe below.

Green Shells: There’s enough blue themed things out there, and you want guests to enjoy their drink – not yell “FUCK” the second you hand it over to them – so that’s why this is a Green Shell instead. It’s basically a white rum daiquiri; add a splash of midori if you want to increase the green colour, but no more than 30mL because Midori tastes like arse.

Senran Kagura Burst: Best just to quote Brian on this one.

Akahige Pharmacy, “Red Beard Pharmacy”, is once again teaming up with Senran Kagura for a rebranded version of its “second battle” tonics. The shop, which is located throughout Japan, sells over-the-counter fertility aids, lubes, penis pumps, and other things. In English, the Akahige dubs itself as an “energetic medicine speciality shop”. The pharmacy, its mascot, and the newly rebranded tonic appear in the recently released Senran Kagura Burst.

It’s your party. You do you.

Mangelico: A drink I was introduced to by a very good friend (hi Amelia!), this one is super simple: Frangelico and Malibu poured over ice. It’s a super sweet drink, but it also requires bugger all preparation. A couple of bartenders in Melbourne might know what you mean if you ask for it around the CBD, since they were the ones who came up with it.

Nuka-Cola: Hard not to include this. The basic recipe is equal parts creaming soda, Coke and Mountain Dew, which sounds fucking horrific if you ask me. I’d drink goon before that.

If you want to get real classy by recreating the authentic drink, here’s the proper list of ingredients for Nuka-Cola:

Carbonated Water
Caramel Color
Aspartame (artificial sweetener)
Phosphoric Acid
Potassium Benzoate (preservative)
Citric Acid
Caffeine

On top of that, Nuka-Cola is described as a mix of 17 different fruits that includes pomegranate, tangerine, melons, raspberries, strawberries, mangoes, peaches, blueberries and more. But nobody wants to fill their house with fruit for one (possibly very nice) cocktail.

Mario Mushroom: Can’t represent Sonic and not represent Mario. One and a half parts bourbon, half a part of ginger syrup, quarter part cardamaro and a dash of cardamom bitters. Have fun hunting for the last bit in Dan Murphy’s. Throw everything into a cocktail shaker, shake over ice and then strain into a short glass. Add a slice of shiitake mushroom, otherwise the whole Mario thing doesn’t make sense.

So say you’re out at a bar, or hosting a house party for mates. It’s a themed night; maybe a costume party. What kinds of gamer drinks, shots, cocktails and mocktails would you make?

The Cheapest NBN 1000 Plans

Looking to bump up your internet connection and save a few bucks? Here are the cheapest plans available.

At Kotaku, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

Comments

16 responses to “16 Drinks For Gamer Parties”

READ THE COMMENTS