15 Signs You Learned to Drink in Ohio

3. You’ve drank way more Natty Light than you care to admit.

If you’re a Cincinnatian, you justified this by saying, “Don’t trash the ‘Nati: Let the Natty trash you.”

4. Your list of favorite drinking venues includes a stadium parking lot and an outdoor music pavilion.

I don’t know if we invented tailgating, but we damn well perfected it.

5. When you left the state the first time, you never understood why convenience stores wouldn’t sell you beer.

Why would you go into a convenience store if not for beer?

6. You’ve spent more on beer in a UDF than you have on ice cream.

The shakes are pretty good, but if I wanted ice cream, I’d go down the road to Dairy Queen.

7. Paying $5 for a beer makes absolutely no sense to you.

Why? Why would anyone in any other state pay that much for a beer?

8. You’re way better at playing cornhole when you’re hammered.

For whatever reasons, 10 beers gives you the perfect amount of lift and rotation on the bag.

9. Someone has unironically suggested cow-tipping while you’ve been drinking.

You probably didn’t do it, but the fact that it was suggested was bad enough.

10. You’ve furtively swigged Jack Daniels out of a Coke bottle underneath the bleachers during a high school football game.

Or some shitty off-brand diluted whiskey like Old Dan Tucker, if JD was too rich for your tastes.

11. Your pregaming was always better than the actual going out.

No offense to Ohio bars and clubs, but there’s something special about drinking on porches, in basements, or in kitchens while talking to friends that pubs and dancing could never really make up for.

12. You’ve had shots with a professional football player.

In both Cincinnati and Cleveland, it’s relatively normal to stumble across a Bengals or Browns player while out for a weekend drink. I do not know anyone in Cincinnati who hasn’t been at a bar with Rey Maualuga.

13. Cabrewing is literally your favorite thing in the world.

A cooler of beer in a canoe or a tube while you float down a lazy, summertime river? Absolutely perfect.

14. You’ve traveled once — just once — to Kentucky for a bottle of Everclear.

It was not worth it.

15. You grew up drinking light beer, but are now submerged in a sea of craft beer.

Ohio has been at the vanguard of the craft beer revolution — which seems unlikely considering how ubiquitous shitty light beer was for so many decades.