Last weekend I headed up to San Luis Obispo to party with the infamous Central Pacific Ski Club. We sponsor these wild hooligans as they definitely represent the 40Cozy lifestyle. The party had a white trash theme and we got things rolling around noon. My initial goal was to maintain a semi-professional demeanor and only have a single forty…but you know how things get once that malt liquor goodness hits your lips.

Now I wouldn’t say things got out of hand, but these cats sure know how to party. 40Cozy was a big hit and the cozies actually worked perfectly for Edward 40 Hands, which suprisingly hadn’t been tested yet by our dedicated R & D department. Here are some of the lovely young coeds who participated in the festivities:

The day ended a little hazy as I’d consumed five 40oz beverages by the end of the party. I know, I have a hard time believing it also. 40Cozy does not endorse drinking such massive quantities of beer. Besides, we like even numbers- so stick with four. Two for the newcomers.

In my days before the 40cozy and after college I did a lot of world-wandering. I’ve backpacked through four continents and over twenty-five countries on a very limited budget. Along the way I drank a lot of different things but probably the most memorable was snake wine. It was during my days in Nam, taking a tour up the Mekong Delta that I happened upon this wonderful beverage.

Snake wine is made by taking your best Vietnamese whiskey, and then going out in the jungle and finding a snake. Along the way you pick up any roots, herbs, scorpions and whatever other tasty tidbits you want to add. You take your snake, whiskey and random goodies, put them all together in a great big jar and let them sit there covered for about six months. At the end of six months its ready to drink.

The Vietnamese say snake wine is good for all kinds of things. Its the medicine of the people. Some say its “good for your banana”, while others say it cures rheumatism and arthritis. Others just tell you it gets you nice and drunk. There is no question, however, that after drinking snake wine you feel it. You feel it in your veins and in your mouth and in your head. Everything has a hard-to-explain buzz to it. And the flavor… what can I say about the flavor? Probably the best way to describe it is it tastes like rotten scales and whiskey. Thats a funny thing about snake wine; if you take a shot of it, you’ll probably agree that its the worst thing you’ve ever tasted in your whole life. Everyone who takes a shot agrees on that, but then about ten minutes later you’ll find yourself strangely yearning to take another.

I drank snake wine when I was in Vietnam but I’ve also had it back here in California. I got a couple bottles through customs and in the early days of 40cozy.com we cracked open one at a party. All of the 40cozy crew that was present took a shot and its been in our veins ever since. A few days after that bottle was opened and everyone was still feeling it, one of our designers, Carlos, gave me a gift. He had stuffed a rubber lizard into a 40 as a memento to the snake wine, a California version of a drink none of us will forget.

Well I guess it was just a matter of time before somebody made a 40cozy LOLcat. This is probably the fattest cat I have ever seen too. I wonder what he would look like shaved….

We all know the old fashioned method used by many malt liquor drinkers to keep their hands relatively dry: the brown paper bag.Hell, we even used to use them before we were sent a vision from above to create the 40Cozy. While some believe this adds some mystique to your malt liquor swilling, most agree it just makes you look like the guy who lives behind the 7-11 (who is a good guy, don’t get me wrong). I’m not sure how the laws work, but someone convinced me at a young age that concealing your alcoholic beverage in such a fashion makes it so you can drink it on the street. I can’t imagine a cop merrily strolling by someone sipping from a 40 shaped brown bag, convinced it is anything other than booze.We’ve made a pretty good start this year at providing America’s drinkers with our 40Cozies this year, but we’re still new on the block. Our huge sales spike around the holidays tells me that many a stocking was stuffed with a 40Cozy, but apparently Santa didn’t get the memo: Oh well, maybe next year. I think the big guy will definitely switch over to a 40Cozy when he checks out our designs and realizes the functionality of the handle. And who can argue when your hands are warm and dry and your beverage is still nice and cold?

While it’s premature to start hyping up our 3rd Annual Olde E Ski Trip, I can’t help but go back on the photos/video of the past two years. The premise is simple: a dozen guys head up to a cabin with little more than our boards/skis, some bread and pb, various munchies, and 7-8 cases of Olde English malt liquor. The last two years have started out fairly smoothly- you know, building igloos, setting up mini board park courses, and the like. Inevitably, each day spirals into a drunken destruction match of a night.
Some of the highlights include:

• Towing guys on skis behind a truck down the snowy road at 30 mph to hit an 8 ft jump we masterfully crafted.
• Someone stealing a car and driving it into a snowbank 20 yards down the road (which nobody claimed to know anything about, of course)

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