At its core, drinking alcohol is a solitary exercise. Sure, folks may quaff with the masses at sports bars or clubs, but guzzling shots or downing beers is ultimately a one-person enterprise: one glass, one mouth, one buzz.
That's why the inventors of a new interactive drink think they're on to something.
It's basically a shot of frozen gelatin and wine trapped in a narrow plastic tube. The only way to free the captive alcohol is for one person to suck on one end of the tube while another blows from the opposite side.
Hence the device's scandalous name: Suck and Blow.
''This is a whole new avenue in the liquor industry,'' says founder Doug Hamer, no enemy of hyperbole. ''It's not about getting people drunk. It's about the interaction -- it's about people having fun.''
He has a point. It kind of makes drinking a team game.
The wine-based shots are fruity with a bit of a kick, though it would take plenty to feel the effect. The biggest challenge is the timing. A synchronized suck-and-blow effort is crucial to swallowing the shot in one smooth motion. An overeager blower or a reluctant sucker can keep the shot trapped in the plastic tube.
Hamer invented the interactive shots after a 2001 trip to a festival where he saw a girl inhaling a gelatin shot and a dude, nearby, funneling a beer. Sure, both were enjoying alcohol, but Hamer figured they might have more fun if he found a way they could do it together.
The next day, he went to a hardware store and bought 500 feet of tubing. He cut it into 6-inch pieces and poured alcohol-infused gelatin inside. Then he started carrying them around South Carolina beaches with friends and selling them to sunbathers.
Eventually, the company was able to get the drink licensed in 15 states, and the shots are now being sold in clubs, bars for between $3 and $6 apiece. Liquor stores are now selling four-packs of the drinks, also.
It wasn't easy. Alcohol giants aren't too keen on competition. Hamer maxed out credit cards, mortgaged his house and put his savings on the line for his new business. He still runs it like a mom-and-pop, and his buddies show up at promotions to hand out T-shirts and free shots at bars and clubs.
At an event in Athens, Ga., a college town about 60 miles northeast of Atlanta, cries of ''suck, suck, suck'' and ''blow harder'' filled the air wherever Hamer and his team went.
''It's good for meeting girls,'' Dustin Toliver, a 22-year-old college student, stammered just after downing a shot with the help of waitress Emily Schrack.
The four flavors -- cherry, wild berry, orange and ''The Bomb'' -- offer decent variety, said Wendy Johnson, 26, in town for a football game. ''It's kind of like CPR.''
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