Blog

(And I bet you thought it was a informal website!)

The best-known fannish libation, blog is a very strong alcoholic punch with many recipes. The term has been used for all manner of concoctions, potable or otherwise, that fans stir up at clubs and conventions. Blog is said to be the only known cure for Twonk's Disease, but since it isn't clear which is the version that's efficacious, the poor Twonk's victims must keep drinking till the cure seems worse than the malady.

Most often today you will see the sweet, bright-red and rather mild mixture made by Minn-StFans since at least the 1970s (it likely started with Jim Young and the original Minneapolis in '73 bid parties). The canonical recipe calls for a 12-ounce can each of frozen orange juice, lemonade and limeade, 4 liters of ginger ale, a juice can of vodka, lots of ice and half a juice can of grenadine. Like all blogs, the Minneapolis version is somewhat variable, according to the ingredients available, but experts aver, "As long as you have enough grenadine, it doesn't matter."

Liverpool fans used the term blog first; it was the fictional sponsor of their taped faan fiction play "The March of Slime." Later, they hung up a "Drink Blog" sign at First Kettering and got the bartender to tell anyone who asked –- including a few mundanes -– that they were "out" and didn't expect the next shipment until the next day, but then the barman mixed cider and rum to sell as "blog." Meanwhile, Peter Hamilton concocted a pale gray liquid with black specks in suspension, containing eggflip and brandy, with bits of Tia Maria, Beecham's Powder, aspirin, benedictine, Alka-Seltzer, black currant juice, a touch of mustard, and "other things"; fanhistory does not record whether any fen were desperate enough to drink it.

In the 1950s, a group of Detroit fans made blog for a Midwestcon room party. Buck Coulson recalled, "It consisted of sweet wine, dry wine, vodka, a quart of 200-proof medical alcohol, frozen lemonade, fresh lime juice, and some cherries to give it 'body,' and possibly a few other ingredients as well. The cherries sank to the bottom, and the lime halves floated on top rather like little green corpses. It was mixed in a galvanized bucket (this was before plastics); the color was a revolting shade of brown. Harlan took one look at it, and stabbed it several times with a butcher knife to make sure it was dead before he drank any."

From Fancyclopedia 2, ca. 1959

(Liverpool Fandom) This versatile substance was discovered to fandom -- at least, the word was -- by Liverpool Group, who had it stand sponsor to their tapera, "The March of Slime". At First Kettering, the Liverpudlians, with the bartender's cooperation, hung up a "Drink Blog" sign, without a Blog to be drunk ("preceded by an advertising campaign with 10,000 quote-cards"). The nonexistent drink caught on; people (mundane ones) walking in from the street inquired and at first were fobbed off ("all gone, and the next shipment not expected in until tomorrow") tho later the barmen made up a mixture of cider and rum to sell. Blasphemy! Meanwhile, back at the convention, Peter Hamilton had made up the fannish Blog; a dreadful stuff (as our sketch shows), [not shown] pale grey with Black Specks in suspension. It was brewed up of eggflip and brandy, with bits of Tia Maria, Beecham's Powder, aspirin, benedictine, Alka-Seltzer, black currant juice, a touch of mustard, and other things your Larousse hardly dares imagine. Finally the word came to be used for all the indefinable concoctions of alcohol and other things that circulate at conventions. It could be used equally for Joy Clarke's rhubarb wine, Jack Harness' homogenized apple pulp, or somebody's port-and-Pepsicola; there are no specific ingredients.

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