Cocktail Thursday: Mississippi State Edition

If your Georgia Bulldogs are about to take on a top 25 team at night in Athens Georgia, with the visitors coming in off a huge road win, you could probably use a drink. I can help you with that.

The late, great University of Texas golf coach Harvey Penick was fond of saying "confidence is that feeling you have before you learn better." Harvey could have been an SEC football fan.

Georgia and Mississippi State both come into this one with valid reasons for confidence. The visiting Bulldogs just dismantled an LSU team who many thought would spend 2017 in or around the top 10. The home standing ‘Dawgs remain undefeated, largely on the strength of a defense that is statistically as good as almost any in college football. The maroon Bulldogs have a veteran quarterback who has played mistake-free football through three games. The red and black Bulldogs have a freshman quarterback who has worked around and through his mistakes to remain undefeated.

Both teams will rely on obscenely talented running backs and it's no stretch to say that the team that both executes the run and defends it more consistently is likely to emerge the winner Saturday night.

If you read my brief discussion with our friends at For Whom the Cowbell Tolls, you got a pretty good summation of my feelings on this game. Mississippi State does some things the Georgia will have trouble stopping. That being said, I'm not fully sold on Dan Mullin's team playing the kind of football they did last Saturday two weeks in a row. Mississippi State is a tragicomic 2-13 against ranked SEC teams under Dan Mullen. To be fair, that includes an 0-8 mark against Nick Saban-coached Alabama teams, but still. You’d expect a blind squirrel to find a few more nuts than that.

if I were a betting man I would probably take Mississippi State and the five points Vegas will give you. But that doesn't mean I couldn't see Georgia winning a close one on the back of a defensive stand late in the game.

Ultimately, one of two fan bases is about to find out something very good about its team. The other is about to find out something not so flattering. Either Georgia is crescendoing toward cementing its spot as the class of the SEC East, or Mississippi State is about to firm up it's argument as the clear second best team in the SEC behind Alabama, and a candidate to unseat the Tide for a moment. I do not believe that these realities will coexist. Somebody is about to find out that they should have known better than to be this darn confident.

And what is the drink of choice for that moment when reality delivers you a swift kick back into reality? Why, a swift kick to the nuts.

It’s so simple a Mississippi State philosophy major could do it. Start by taking an ice cold Coca-Cola and pouring it into a glass. With me so far? Good. Now add the amount and brand of bourbon of your choice. I am on record as stating that there are no bad bourbons, just bad bourbon drinkers, and those who drink bourbon badly.

And finally, the kicker. A handful of salted, roasted peanuts. personally, I prefer smoked peanuts, which are actually a thing that you can do, and you should be ashamed of yourself if you did not know this. I will share the method with you in the comments if you want to join our secret society.

I love this concoction because it combines two of my favorite things: Coca-Cola with peanuts (which I learned to love as a child), with Coca-Cola and bourbon (which I learned to love as an adult of legal drinking age, and not a moment before).

Enjoy responsibly, and go ‘Dawgs!!!!

* One note of caution. You must use ice cold Coke. You cannot ice the Coke in the glass. Unless you want to try to fish peanuts out from around melting ice. This is fun to watch others attempt, it's not so fun when you are the one doing it.