Drinking holidays are special. They require no reverence, no gift giving (unless those gifts be shots) and most importantly, no family. They are an excuse to be social, bond over inconsequential commonalities, draw penises on your friends' faces when they get totally hammered and pass out. Of all the drinking holidays, St. Patrick's Day is the most transparent about its boozy motives (Driving the snakes out of a foreign land? That's the ancient-days equivalent of "Hey, I took out the recycling – let's get wasted!"). Its celebrants are superficially invested at best, and downright drunken opportunists at worst – but that's totally cool with us. Because when it comes to heritage, St. Patrick's Day is the honey badger of all the holidays: Go ahead, non-Irish, get drunk on Killian's and try to score with some redhead – St. Patrick don't give a shit.
In the good saint's honor, celebrate his feast day by cribbing a few notes from his life and applying them whilst deep-throating some beer bottles. The guide below will help you re-enact iconic moments from ol' Patty's life when you're out and about on March 17.
St. Pat: Enslaved at the age of 16 in Ireland, until he escaped six years later.
You: Do the math and his enslavement ends at age 22, which draws a tidy comparison to the age you graduate from college these days. Therefore, to adequately honor the guy, you should do some time over by UCF. Your best Irish bets include Jake & Micky's Bar (11786 E. Colonial Drive, 407-574-3330), which is packed to the gills with beer-slamming students and their questionable jukebox choices. You could also try the Tilted Kilt Pub and Eatery (11650 University Blvd., 407-781-5458; tiltedkilt.com) an Irish-themed breastaurant bustling with waitresses in tight tops and short kilts (and the leering onlookers who love them), which serves traditional Irish fare like shepherds pie and, uh, garlic fries.
St. Pat: Baptized thousands of Irish.
You: Ladies, this one is pretty easy – so easy that you could go just about anywhere to mimic the old guy. But you'll do best where there's a crowd of drunken horndogs aching to bed anything vaguely resembling a female, so Wall Street Plaza (19 N. Orange Ave., 407-420-1515; wallstreetplaza.net) is likely where you'll want to be. Show up, have a drink and wait. You will get hit on (probably poorly), and then you can justifiably dump your drink on the soused suitor's head. For extra points, demand that your ill-fated suitor be reborn while you do it and really fuck with his mind.
St. Pat: Banished the snakes from Ireland.
You: Since Ireland never had snakes to begin with, St. Patrick's biggest claim to fame more than likely implies that he drove the pagans out of Ireland. So, all you need to do to relive this one is head to wherever pagans gather, like metaltastic rock bar the Haven (6700 Aloma Ave., Winter Park, 407-673-2712; thehavenrocks.com) or the earth-loving hippie zone Dandelion Communitea (618 N. Thornton Ave., 407-362-1864; dandelion communitea.com) and usher them out in the name of St. Patrick. You should pay your tab before you start prodding pagans with your shillelagh, though.
St. Pat: His walking stick turned into a tree.
You: This one's kind of obscure, but give it a shot anyway. After a night of pumping pints of Guinness at the Celt (25 S. Magnolia Ave., 407-481-2928; harpandcelt.com) and gulping shots of Jameson like it's water at Lizzy McCormack's (55 N. Orange Ave., 407-426-8007; lizziemccormacks.com), you'll probably be hunched over in some downtown corner, puking up the fruits of the Emerald Isle's finest beverage makers. Following in the saint's footsteps (while keeping yours out of the puddle of vomit), imagine that vile regurgitation growing into a wondrous alcohol tree, its fruit the shiniest bottles full of beer and liquor. Then sigh and come back to reality: You're sweaty, you stink and you've totally forgotten where you live. In other words, you did St. Patrick's Day right.
