4. A long standing East to West migration. There is nothing wrong with starting the night out drinking jugs under an umbrella, alfresco style on Rundle Street and then making your way to the seedier west end of town, namely Hindley Street. Never, ever the other way around! The night goes in one direction – down.
5. Every public holiday is spent either drunk, hungover or a combination of both. The Adelaide Cup public holiday is not spent watching horses gallop around a track as intended, but at a music festival getting trashed, sunburnt and causing irreversible damage to your hearing.
6. With excessive drink prices, some of the nation’s highest alcohol taxes and ridiculous cover charges, there’s nothing unusual about splitting a bottle of vodka, or working your way through a slab of beer and getting your slur on, before embarking on a night of carnage.
7. After a skinful; you decide raiding a cigarette machine and heading to the beer garden for a poorly crafted pick up attempt on a cute looking smoker is your best move. The next morning you wake up to find an almost empty cigarette packet with the top ripped off on the bedroom floor, you have early onset laryngitis, no cute smoker & you’re $28 lighter in the pocket.
8. You decide the best idea in the world is to head over to the Woolshed and ride the mechanical bull, blitzed out of your mind. After signing a waiver stating you’re 100% sober, you perform an abysmally embarrassing cowboy display lasting an agonizingly short few seconds.
9. You’ve been in a deep state of inebriation and think the most sensible course of action is the deathly salt lick, tequila shot and lemon suck. You’re rewarded with immediate nocturnal amnesia.
10. You have returned home from an all-day wine tour in the Barossa Valley or McLaren Vale wine regions with several unexplained bottles of red. After hours of free wine tastings, you have zero recollection of where these mysterious purchases came from. You later discover a screwed up receipt in your pocket.
11. Many a Monday has been wasted with an underwhelming work output or spent in bed groaning whilst curled up in the fetal position after a summer Sunday session at the Grand Hotel down ‘The Bay’.
12. Many a Thursday is spent hugging the porcelain or causing all sorts of workplace blunders after dancing to hits of days gone by at HQ (formerly Heaven) during an unnecessary hump day bender.
13. It is absolutely mandatory to roll a stubby of Cooper’s Pale Ale on the bar for even sediment distribution and optimum taste. This is considered a cardinal sin if not done prior to unscrewing the cap. Failure will result in the immediate sacking of the bartender.
14. A rite of passage for every broke university student. A night of regrettable hook-ups, wearing cheap crappy matching t-shirts as you stumble along to a string of dodgy bars. The night is a blur of shots, falling over parked cars and making an all-round disgrace of oneself.
15. You wake up in the morning with coloured stains on your bed sheets from 4 or 5 random entry stamps scattered on your wrist. You can only recall the first one.
16. Drinking in rounds is absolutely essential. You shout a round of drinks, the group reciprocates in turn and perfect balance is restored. Simple enough? In theory, yes. The reality often results with unforeseen friction in an otherwise harmonious group dynamic.
17. Being referred to as being blind usually conjures up images of dark sunglasses, a Labrador and a cane. This is not the case when drinking like a champ in Adelaide. To be blind is to convey maximum severity of intoxication during the said drinking period. Particular emphasis is given to the drawn out letter i. ‘Last night I was bliiind’
18. You have completely lost your shit after being over stimulated on way too many 2-4-1 happy hour Jaeger & skittle bombs before hitting a wall and crashing out hard, well before midnight.
19. The Adelaide version of a Palace is not the type royalty would generally frequent (with the possible exception of Prince Harry). This is a venue for the more sensual arts where uneducated ladies tell you lies so you pay for dances to fund an alleged education.
20. After smashing drinks for half the night, you confidently transition from the bar to the dance floor, singing songs that you probably shouldn’t have memorised and becoming an irresistible magnet of desire to the opposite sex as you throw your hands up in the air.
21. There’s no need to peruse a menu when ordering a pub meal, as the German influenced delicacy of schnitzel is the only choice for any respectable Adelaidian. I personally go for chicken with pepper sauce.
22. You have partaken in the age-old tradition of shaving off the eyebrows of a good mate followed by drawing penises all over their face while they are passed out in a drunken stupor.
23. You have ventured to ‘The Cas’ after 3am when the lock in/out has been enforced, although you will never admit going there to anyone. 