Throughout this semester, I have been contemplating many aspects and incidents of drunken debauchery here at Georgetown. The more I thought about the subject—the wild nights, the painful mornings, the stupid and awesome decisions made—the more I wanted to know the meaning behind all of this intoxicated behavior. Why does Georgetown drink so hard, and how could I get to the bottom of this question?
I decided what any logical person would do. I would go straight to the source of it all, Dixie Liquor, and spend a day “working” with the good ol’ boys who man the store: Sean, the manager; Court, the stocker; Carlos, token Georgetown student; and a bearded guy (but I was too out of it to remember his name).
Dixie Liquor and Georgetown’s self-inflicted liver damage have gone hand and hand for almost 80 years. Dixie’s rich and long history starts just a month after the end of prohibition, when Oscar Dodek opened the store on the very same corner where it is located today. He and his wife lived upstairs in the small building for many years before selling it off. When asked about the following proprietors, Sean could only comment, “Fuck those guys. Don’t write about them.” Then one day, when the planets were aligned, Sean’s brother allegedly won the store in a poker match, and the natural order of the world was restored.
When I walked in for my first day of “work” at 3 p.m. on Saturday, I was told to make sure I had my “working” britches on. The first order of the day was a house classic, the Dixie Mimosa. This concoction was conceived late one night out of desperation. All the orange juice was missing since, as Sean said, “sometimes we ain’t so good at stocking.” Luckily, orange Mad Dog was around and a legend was born. Just remember to pour the peach André in second.
Luck wasn’t the only reason Mad Dog was in stock. One of their greatest customers, accomplishes that which is by no means an easy feat because “the best customers come in three times a day,” orders only Mad Dog and is hence called Mad Dog. Rumor has it he once subsisted on a Mad Dog diet!
Still, Mad Dog is but one of their committed customers. Early afternoon on Saturday, practically all drinking-age Hoyas made their way down the hill, in what the employees call the “Zombie Rush.” The Dixie boys work hard to fulfill all desires, ranging from the football bros who needed whipped cream-flavored Burnett’s to chase their pancake-flavored Burnett’s, to an Eastern European who bought a $150 bottle of Remy Martin for his daughter, to the 60-year-old Georgetown resident who bought a case of Straw-Ber-Rita. Even cops love Dixie. From the amount of D.C. blue that walks in and out of the door, you would think it was a beat in Anacostia. Let me tell you a story about how much cops love Dixie.
Court, the self-described 50-year-old “epicurean,” was driving back from Virginia after doing a landscaping job. He and his partner were pulled over by a lady cop, he claims, due to racial profiling. “They were wondering what these two crazy-looking white guys were doing with a truck full of mulch, and why we wasn’t Mexicans.” After the cop found a concealed weapon, a machete, in the back of the truck, and a couple of empty flasks, the cop told them to get out for a pat-down. At this point of the story, Court winked at me and told me “to always wear sweat pants for such an (intimate) occasion.” After six hours cuffed on the curb, plenty of sobriety tests and a thorough inspection of their truck, an older cop arrived on the scene. He found out that Court worked at Dixie, and sent the pair on their merry way.
While I don’t quite remember, at the end of the “work” day I was so “exhausted” I had to be carried home by my roommate. I might have failed at figuring out why Hoyas drink, but I learned a keg-full about the awesome guys who facilitate how we get drunk—now that I think about it, maybe we get hammered just to have Court compliment our “collector items” Natty Caddies one more time.
The main lesson I took away from my experience is that Dixie has supported Georgetown throughout the years. So even if their handles are expensive, and their kegs are cheap, only no-good traitors deserving of expulsion go to Towne or Wagner’s.
