FIPS HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE DAY 8: DRUNKS

Every day for the next week, Amanda, FIPS writer and creator the douchey gift blog You're Welcome, will be providing you with gift suggestions that you can buy right here in Park Slope.  Today's edition is for the drunks you can't wrestle off a barstool on a Friday night or a Monday afternoon.

You can't remember the last time you saw her sober.  In fact, you can't remember ANY time you saw her sober.  She is your drunk friend.  You can't bring her to a work event because she'll trip and fall right into the arms of your boss, or she'll sleep with that guy in the Finance Department.  BUT, she is GREAT on a particular kind of Saturday night.  The kind of Saturday night where the goal is to black out and wake up in your underwear on your kitchen floor.  Help keep your drunken partner in crime well-lubricated (that's what she said) this holiday season, when we're around our families and need all of the booze we can get. 

1. Rabbit Wine Stoppers ($4.59, Tarzian West, 194 7th Ave at 2nd St, 718-788-4213): This might not be the most useful gift for Drunk Girl, mainly because she never opens a bottle of wine without finishing it.  But maybe, just maybe, these colorful Wine Stoppers will give her a reason to pace herself.  Or, they'll let her plug up the bottle as she travels to her second location.  Happy travels. 

2. Govino Ergonomic Wine Glasses ($3 each, Big Nose, Full Body, 382 7th Ave between 11th and 12th Sts, 718-369-4030): Since she moved into her new apartment, she has broken approximately 45 wine glasses.  They're just so delicate and she's just so completely shitfaced always.  It's fine.  These stemless wine glasses are better for her (easier to hold, but classier than drinking out of that giant plastic mug that she's taken to).  They even have a crease specifically for your thumb, making it even easier for her to hold onto it as she's dancing around the living room by herself to "Born This Way."  And at $3 each, she can afford to break them to her little drunk heart's content.  

3. Beer Microbrew Brittle ($6, Valley Shepherd Cheese, 211 7th Ave between 3rd and 2nd Sts, 347-889-5508): What's up, Homer Simpson?  Beer has been an American pastime longer than baseball, so it's only natural that it has found its way into everything from food to apparel to cosmetics.  Beer never lets you down, like Tequila always has.  It's the safer option.  When Drunk Girl is wiling out at the bar, you try to steer her towards a glass of water, and then a light beer to slow things down.  And hey, you know what else slows things down?  Food.  Think of all of the times you've tried to shove some pizza down her throat so you don't end up in the ER again.  This Beer Microbrew Brittle will provide Drunk Girl with sustenence, and it's flavored with beer, so she'll be down to eat it, even in her most inebriated state. 

4. The Velvet Devil Merlot; Boom Boom Syrah ($15/$20, Big Nose, Full Body, 382 7th Ave between 11th and 12th Sts, 718-369-4030): It's common knowledge that if you don't know what to bring for a dinner party, a Christmas party, or an acquaintance's birthday, booze is always the way to go (unless the gift receiver is a recovering alcoholic, of course).  The main reason this girl throws parties at all is so that she has an excuse to get drunk and also because she can stockpile booze that she receives as gifts.  If you're uneducated about wine like I am, you like to judge a bottle by it's cover, and these two selections are fun and suggest the level of debauchery that is expected at her parties.  Devils and bombs.  Sounds about right.   

5. Whisky Lovers Set ($60, The Clay Pot, 62 7th Ave between 1st St and Garfield Pl, 718-788-6564): Because Drunk Girl is a burgeoning alcoholic, her tolerance is way higher than yours.  You go home after work, make dinner, and doze off while watching Top Chef, while she has been out at the bar since she got out of work, knocking back booze like she's a character in Mad Men.  So, when you go out with her, she's always drinking faster and harder than you in order to achieve the level of drunkenness you get off of three beers.  That's where the whisky comes in.  A couple of glasses and she's completely loose-limbed, dropping her phone in the toilet and telling you horrifying personal secrets.  You make a mental note never to go out with her when she's drinking hard liquor.  Instead, encourage her to do this kind of hard core boozing in the safety of her own home with these Whisky Stones.  An ancient Scandinavian tradition, you're supposed to pop these into the freezer and use them in your whisky in lieu of ice cubes, keeping the drink chilled without diluting it.  This is probably a bad thing for a girl who drinks on an empty stomach, but she's not your responsibility, right?

For way more gift suggestions paired with jerky commentary, check out You're Welcome.  And while you're at it, follow Amanda on Twitter @AmandaWaas.