Inside The Upstairs Pub, a group of girls flail their arms in the air, almost resembling jumping jacks, while some of their friends count for them. Another group claps and shouts each time one song ends and another begins. Two boys, no more than a foot apart, yell to each other about the football game on the TV screen. The smell of tequila, sweat and melted cheese from the pizza stand wafts through the bar.
“Are you drunk?” someone asks the person next to them. “No no, just warm,” the other replies.
There are endless alcoholic options for someone to get their fix. There are vodka sodas, Long Islands, Vegas bombs and more. But only one drink is bright blue, vulgarly named and carries the promise of a good time with it: the AMF, which stands for “Adios, Motherfucker.”
It takes Tori, one of the Thursday night bartenders, less than 15 seconds to make it, from scooping ice into a plastic cup to turning four liquor bottles upside down. The alcohol seeps between the cracks the ice has created, and Sprite tops off the drink. This AMF is one of 100 to 200 Tori will make tonight.
Tori slides the AMF across the bar. Does the eager customer on the receiving end know what they’ll be putting in their body?
Jake and Mark sit at a high table. Each of them have an AMF in front of them. They’re confident they know what’s in their drinks.
“We’re alcoholics,” Jake says. When asked why, he says, “Because we’re graduate students! Why else?”
Jake guesses gin, vodka, blue curaçao, rum, maybe some water. Mark says there can’t be any water in there.
Reagan, an IU senior, sits with her friend Kendall a few tables over. Kendall takes a sip of Reagan’s AMF. Reagan says AMFs are made up of vodka, gin, rum, blue curaçao, Long Island mix and Sprite. Kendall says she has no idea. She’s 22 now, and she can’t remember what people told her was in an AMF when she turned 21. If Kendall had to guess, though, she’d say gin, vodka, Sprite, blue curaçao and lemonade.
Michaela, an IU senior, came to Upstairs with three friends. They take off their coats with fur-lined hoods and take the three open seats at the end of the bar. They all order AMFs immediately. She thinks vodka, Sprite and tequila are definitely in the drink she’s sipping. She pauses to think.
“What else? There’s one more. I’m missing one thing,” she says. Michaela asks one of her friends, but she says she doesn’t know any of the alcohols in it.
Michaela remembers. “Oh, blue,” she says. Not blue curaçao, just blue.
Michaela doesn’t say she likes AMFs. “Better than shots,” she says with a shrug.
Kyra, an IU senior, says she likes AMFs because they’re big and have a lot of alcohol in them. She likes the taste too. Kyra thinks she’s drinking Taaka vodka, tequila, gin, Sprite and blue raspberry syrup.
So, what’s really in this drink, shrouded in mystery and a profane name? Sprite, two shots of vodka, one shot of gin, sour mix and blue curaçao.
