KATHIE LEE & HODA
Episode: Winesday, November 10
Total Drinks: Two measly sips
Biggest Lush: Both co-hosts were teetotalers this week
Signature Drinks:
Maple River Winery Pumpkin Wine
Best Bon Mot:
Kathie Lee: "So much about the wine is about the aroma." Hoda: "And it smells rank."
Drunkest Moment: They're more likely to get drunk off actual pumpkins
The ladies of the morning weren't playing very nice this week. As they always do, KL&H sipped and pimped a specific brand of wine—but this time, they weren't fans of the Pumpkin Wine from Maple River Winery in North Dakota. Its neon yellow color popped off the screen. Kathie Lee's highest praise after a couple of pursed-lip sips: "Not as bad as I thought it would be." Perhaps the $13.99 price tag wasn't up to snuff for the typically classy duo. And it still worked out well for winery owners Greg and Susan Kempel. They're
promoting their brew "as seen on the
Today show!!!" Its rankness goes unmentioned.
TWO AND A HALF MEN
Episode 8: "Springtime on a Stick"
Total Drinks: 7
Biggest Lush: Momma Harper
Signature Drinks: Margaritas 'n' martinis
Best Bon Mot:
Charlie: "Help yourself, mom. We keep the vodka in a bleach bottle."
Drunkest Moment: It's a tie between Charlie's drunken off-screen $1,500 date "experience" and his mother's insinuated off-screen hook-up with a much younger woman.
The Harper matriarch managed to wrest control of the lush crown from her infantile sons this week, despite Charlie opening the episode in a drunken stupor. Even the young half-man of the show recoils when his uncle crashes through the door, noting "I just hope he remembers to pull up his zipper." Evelyn and Charlie engage in boozy repartee (if one could call it that): "I'll go drown my sorrows in alcohol," vs. "Dammit Charlie, how am I supposed to make a martini without green olives." At least Evelyn had reason to drink—it was her too-old-to-be-divulged birthday.
THE
TODAY SHOW
Episode: November 11, 2010
Total Drinks: 4
Biggest Lush: Matty
Signature Drinks: Anything and everything from the wild stretches of Italy
Best Bon Mot:
Matt: "Sooooave."
Drunkest Moment: They're drinking at 9:30 in the morning. Every moment counts.
My oh my, Mr. Lauer made like the fourth hour of the
Today show with a tour of Italy's wines by the very serious sommelier Joe Bastianich (son of Lidia and judge on
MasterChef with Gordon Ramsay). They sipped from four different regions, including the
Querciabella 2007, Soave Pieropan 2009, and Barolo. None of his morning show cohorts were to be found. Poor Matty drank alone.
EASTBOUND & DOWN
Episode: Season Finale "La Flama Blanca Goes Out"
Total Drinks: 6
Biggest Lush: The hirsute Mr. Kenny Powers
Signature Drinks: Beers, beers, beers
Best Bon Mot:
Kenny: "I just don't understand why [April] would do this to me." Dustin: "Well I dunno. Maybe 'cause you left her at a fucking gas station?"
Drunkest Moment: After Kenny finds out that the love of his life, April, is pregnant—supposedly with "a black man's baby," a.k.a. her real estate sales partner—Kenny, dressed like Boss Hogg in a flashy white suit, goes to the local, blows a line of cocaine, and complains to his friends. When one of them points out that Kenny also slept with other people while he was in Mexico, he replies, "Yeah. I basically fucked… like almost an entire village full of Mexican women."
And so with a six-pack of beers and a chug from a wine bottle, the second season of the HBO comedy comes to a close.
THE GOOD WIFE
Episode: 6 "Poisoned Pill"
Total Drinks: 8
Biggest Lush: Former couple Kalinda and Donna
Signature Drinks: Champagne and Scotch
Best Bon Mot:
Michael J. Fox guest starred as a conniving lawyer who runs circles around Alicia: "You think you were my equal in that courtroom," he tells her. "I didn't lose. Lockhart, Gardner, and Bond stumbled their way into a $90 million class action suit and my client asked me to lower you down to $50 million. I lowered you to 35." Booyah.
Drunkest Moment: Alicia looked stone-cold sober after that takedown.
Cross-examinations and witnesses and pharmaceutical companies and blah blah blah. After their daylong stuffy courtroom antics, the employees at LGB kicked back to celebrate what they considered a big win against lawyer Louis Canning (a brilliantly cast Michael J. Fox). Turns out he played them all along. Their Champagne toasts may have turned a little sour after his reveal. Kalinda also shared a drink with former girlfriend Donna, played by Lily Taylor.
GOSSIP GIRL
Episode 8: "Juliet Doesn't Live Here Anymore"
Total Drinks: 9
Biggest Lush: Draw between horn dogs Chuck and Blair and we-hardly-knew-ye Juliet
Signature Drinks: Sparkly Champagne for the Upper East Siders
Best Bon Mot:
"I don't like tattletales much more than I like young women who use their sexuality to further their careers," said the Dean.
Drunkest Moment: Chuck's post-coital Scotch gulping in his limo
Living in the city that contains the most bars per block doesn't seem to affect the drinking habits of the dewy-eyed schemers of
Gossip Girl. It's a little unclear how old everyone is, yet Blair, Dan, and Vanessa still posed daintily with their glasses of Champagne at a gala for the
New York City Ballet. And the fizzy stuff was instrumental to a plot twist too belabored to explain here. Let's just say Blair dropped a memory card containing photos into her glass, and all that incriminating evidence got lost in the bubbly.
THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF ATLANTA
Episode 6: "Trashed Collection"
Total Drinks: 11
Biggest Lush: NeNe "Hands Off My Cocktail Shaker" Leakes
Signature Drinks: Mango margaritas
Best Bon Mot:
NeNe: "Now where the fuck my drink at?"
Drunkest Moment: At a party, NeNe tapped Gregg's nose, put her hand over his mouth, and said "You trying to be with me?" Gregg has the only logical response: "I'm gonna shoot pool."
Does a proper Southern woman pour wine into her travel coffee mug at 9am outside her yard sale? Ask Kim Zolciak, the be-wigged wannabe singer who thought she could sell her old bedroom set for eight grand. She discusses NeNe's marital problems over a couple of mango and Patron silver margaritas. Later, Cynthia's soon-to-be husband Peter brings a bottle of wine to a quaint dinner at the Leakes household. But after tipping back a few, the tumultuous couple got into a public argument and NeNe subtly hinted her husband's a cheater. You know who will never step out on you, NeNe?
Mr. Moet.
HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER
Episode 8: "Natural History"
Total Drinks: 15
Biggest Lush: Draw between all the fundraiser attendees
Signature Drinks: It was a Scotch-soaked evening
Best Bon Mot:
Ted whispers near the fossils to make them echo his profound words: "Diarrhea….Poo poo….Pupu platter."
Drunkest Moment: Barney and Robin get caught by security for fiddling with all the artifacts at the Museum of Natural History during a black-tie fundraiser. Barney wore a King Tut get-up.
Everyone was donning penguin suits for a glamorous gala celebrating something-or-other, but the cocktail dresses and ties still didn't put everyone on their best behavior. After knocking back a few Scotches each, Barney and Robin ran around the Museum of Natural History with a stuffed penguin and caressed all the precious artifacts, in honor of Barney knocking down the museum's giant blue whale when he was five years old. Marshall and Barney, as always, drank Scotch neat. Robin joined along, Lily had white wine, and "Princess" Zooey drank Champagne, naturally.
