This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||
|
Curious... Dipthong01 ( talk) 04:15, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
I don't have any documented proof of this, this drink was popular at my university in the late 1980s.
This is nothing but a new name for "frat punch" or "jungle juice" dispensed in gallon jugs. The article mentions that "borgs" came to national attention from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Well, I was there in 2004, and can attest that Kool Aid mixers were absolutely standard fare at frat and sorority parties. There's probably an unbroken lineage from the punch bowl of old. "Frat punch" exists for reasons that are timeless: underage students need to procure alcohol in a concentrated, easy-to-conceal form (vodka), which can be mixed on-site into a cheap, palatable beverage. Xanthis3 ( talk) 18:04, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
A borg is essentially self-prepared jungle juice — a Kool-Aid or Gatorade-based mixed drink, sometimes with added electrolytes or other "secret ingredients" (powdered caffeine, etc). The only significant difference is that it is usually self-mixed in a gallon jug rather than prepared in a larger batch. All of the supposed health benefits of the water and electrolytes in borgs have been made for decades (mostly tongue-in-cheek) about jungle juice more generally. In this sense, the article should probably be rolled into the entry on jungle juice.
However, a brief look at Wiki's Jungle Juice entry shows that it too is poorly developed, and mostly talks about "true" jungle juice which was home-fermented, or moonshine alcohol more generally. The application of the term "jungle juice" to modern frat punch or party juice mixers was always a tongue-in-cheek usage of the term. Therefore maybe that article should be rolled into this one.
Either way, Wikipedia seems to lack any decent entry on college party punch-type mixed drinks, which is a shame because such drinks do have a unique history and culture all their own, driven by the desire of college party-throwers to get very large groups of people drunk relatively cheaply while operating under the constraint of needing the alcohol itself (frequently illicit) to be in a concentrated and easily secreted form. Xanthis3 ( talk) 03:58, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
<ref name="other-refs-name" />
. Hope we can reach a consensus here!
BanjoZebra (
talk) 04:07, 24 May 2024 (UTC)Well hello, BanjoZebra! Nice to meet you. I see this article is your creation, and far be it from me to disrupt your vision for it. I misspoke when I said frat juice. And thank you for the help with the cites. I have three overall concerns about this entry which I am attempting to address:
(1). What makes a borg a borg? The borg is not a new drink recipe: it contains jungle juice, only self-mixed. It is very important that a reader understand that it's only the method of mixing and consumption that makes it a "borg."
Reading this article, I was initially quite confused on this point, thinking that the borg was causing medical problems due to its unique (and uniquely dangerous) ingredients.
(2). Risks and claimed benefits not unique. The claims about electrolytes, hydration, etc., are not new to the borg. These claims have been made about frat punch for decades, and have been debunked by health experts for decades in warnings to students and parents.
(Nor, I must say, are the streams of ambulances transporting often dozens of unconscious UMass students to Cooley Dickinson Hospital after the annual "Blarney Blowout" or the "Hobart Hoedown" a new phenomenon.)
(3). "Party juice and frat punch." I'm sure "jungle juice" is a common term in some places. But at the place that made borgs infamous, I rarely heard it. Frat punch is a more common term for the drink that would be recognized there and in New England more generally.
I agree that the current sentence structure is clunky. It doesn't read smoothly and the excess cites are awkward. I would like to de-clunkify it. Maybe the synonyms (and cites) can be transferred over to the Jungle Juice page as you suggest.
My only wish is that it is clear what a borg contains.
If the Jungle Juice entry were better-written, I would certainly feel differently. As it is, that entry does such a poor job of defining the drink and doesn't have a section that clearly refers to the familiar Kool-Aid / Gatorade mixers of college frat parties.
If you'll lend your support to the creation of a section on the Jungle Juice page, and help to communicate with any BanjoZebras of that page to explain what we're trying to accomplish, I'd be happy to do it that way. Or, if you have other suggestions as to how we can better make these improvements, I am all ears. Xanthis3 ( talk) 06:13, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
BanjoZebra, the edit-warring really has to stop. You have just reverted my concise and fully-referenced contribution for the fifth (5th) time, in spite of an ongoing conversation on the talk page. It feels to me like you're being personally possessive of the page, and insisting that you and you alone be allowed to curate it. As to your points:
- A borg is frat punch (a/k/a jungle juice) in a gallon jug. It is not a fundamentally different or new type of mixed drink. The references fully support this, focusing on the advantages/disadvantages of self-mixing. This fact is important and deserves mention.
- The Jungle Juice entry has its own issues. Let's focus on this entry before we fix the rest of Wikipedia.
- "a borg has a typical suggested recipe of vodka, water, flavor mix, and electrolytes" Right: frat punch a/k/a jungle juice. Kool-Aid or other powdered drink mix (assuming nobody wants to shell out for real fruit) spiked with vodka or rum, often with electrolytes and/or soda.
- "I think of jungle juice as an unknown mixture of various liquors and mixers arbitrarily thrown together." Maybe, but not as the term is used in the context of college drinking parties. Xanthis3 ( talk) 22:17, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
BanjoZebra. Now we're narrowing in on it.
The new version of something is a version by definition. Further, the CNN article goes on to explain just what the distinction is: “Instead of making a party-sized mixed drink in a huge 5-gallon drink dispenser, a giant storage tub, or even the grossest trend, which was making jungle juice in a sink or bathtub, everyone has their own personal drink” (emphasis added).
As with all mixed drinks, Jungle Juice has no single fixed recipe that is graven in stone.
I noticed and appreciated you not undoing my contribution while we discuss. That would be consistent Wiki practice of using the best available references while searching for better ones, and also consistent with the convention of not making changes to a contribution while an attempt to seek consensus is underway on a talk page. Thank you.
I'm sure there are more references since the broad recipe is frat punch, any way you cut it. I'll look for some. Xanthis3 ( talk) 23:31, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
To put it as the Mashable article does: "The borg is, effectively, a rebranded, tweaked version of jungle juice. But instead of being a communal thing, it's a personal drink." Exactly what CNN says, in so many words. Xanthis3 ( talk) 23:48, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
No, it's saying that it's "rebranded" jungle juice. Or, a "tweaked version" (i.e., a version) of jungle juice. Or, to put it more bluntly as the third source does, "this falsely fruity concoction has been around for years under the name 'Jungle Juice.'" Xanthis3 ( talk) 00:29, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
BanjoZebra ( talk) 00:56, 25 May 2024 (UTC)A borg is designed to be held and consumed by one individual throughout a party, distinguishing it from similar party drinks such as jungle juice and punch.
Rebranding means, basically, same product new label. Cambridge dictionary.
You say you don't buy the source's definition of jungle juice. But, to my mind, "a mixture of vodka and a cheap, fruity mixer" (from The Manual) is basically the same as your definition: "an improvised combination of alcohol and mixers."
You can't just define jungle juice out of existence by saying its a "any mystery drink." The sources are all pretty clear that jungle juice (in the college context) is a essentially a cheap fruit-flavored mixer with a high alcohol concentration, usually intended for bulk consumption at a party.
"and seems to only serve the author's argument that the borg is unoriginal"
Join the club! I have my own beefs with the newspaper writers. I personally think they are highly incentivized to make it seem that they have a scoop on a totally new phenomenon. But, as they say, "Go tell it to the priest."
"I'm genuinely wondering, what do you have against the sentence I added in the first paragraph of the lead?"
Sure. My objection is that it puts the contents of the borg outside the umbrella definition of jungle juice, saying instead that they are merely "similar." But just like an SUV is a version of a "passenger vehicle" within the broader category of "motor vehicle", so the borg is a version of "jungle juice" within the broader category of "mixed drinks." The new version yes, but a version nonetheless.
"Sure, there are some instances of jungle juice that taste like some instances of borgs, but as a whole they are two different forms of party drink, and it is reductive to call them the same"
This is really the heart of the issue. Let me ask it this way: suppose we took a borg and poured the contents into a laboratory beaker. Then we took some other jungle juice and poured it into another beaker, and had the ingredients chemically analyzed. What is it about the borg that places it outside of the broader definition of "jungle juice"?
Also: would you be happier if, instead of saying that it "is jungle juice" I instead say, "it is a version of jungle juice"? Xanthis3 ( talk) 01:47, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
A BORG (Black-Out Rage Gallon) is a frat punch a/k/a jungle juice drink in a gallon jug. Broadly, Kool-Aid or other powdered drink mix (assuming nobody wants to pay for real fruit) heavily spiked with vodka or rum, and often with added electrolytes and/or soda. Occasionally Sunny-D is used. In essence, a cheap fruit-flavored punch.
The essence of a BORG seems to be that:
In other words the BORG doesn't represent any particular innovation in terms of ingredients or recipe. The news articles focus on the advantages / disadvantages of self-mixing.
That's the way it looks to me. Are there other similarities? Other differences? Xanthis3 ( talk) 22:59, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
Here's a synopsis of the above two sections, which I've linked on Wikipedia:Third opinion:
BanjoZebra ( talk) 17:43, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
Response to third opinion request: |
Avoid any edit wars, Happy editing. Bookku ( talk) 15:13, 27 May 2024 (UTC) |
This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||
|
Curious... Dipthong01 ( talk) 04:15, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
I don't have any documented proof of this, this drink was popular at my university in the late 1980s.
This is nothing but a new name for "frat punch" or "jungle juice" dispensed in gallon jugs. The article mentions that "borgs" came to national attention from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Well, I was there in 2004, and can attest that Kool Aid mixers were absolutely standard fare at frat and sorority parties. There's probably an unbroken lineage from the punch bowl of old. "Frat punch" exists for reasons that are timeless: underage students need to procure alcohol in a concentrated, easy-to-conceal form (vodka), which can be mixed on-site into a cheap, palatable beverage. Xanthis3 ( talk) 18:04, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
A borg is essentially self-prepared jungle juice — a Kool-Aid or Gatorade-based mixed drink, sometimes with added electrolytes or other "secret ingredients" (powdered caffeine, etc). The only significant difference is that it is usually self-mixed in a gallon jug rather than prepared in a larger batch. All of the supposed health benefits of the water and electrolytes in borgs have been made for decades (mostly tongue-in-cheek) about jungle juice more generally. In this sense, the article should probably be rolled into the entry on jungle juice.
However, a brief look at Wiki's Jungle Juice entry shows that it too is poorly developed, and mostly talks about "true" jungle juice which was home-fermented, or moonshine alcohol more generally. The application of the term "jungle juice" to modern frat punch or party juice mixers was always a tongue-in-cheek usage of the term. Therefore maybe that article should be rolled into this one.
Either way, Wikipedia seems to lack any decent entry on college party punch-type mixed drinks, which is a shame because such drinks do have a unique history and culture all their own, driven by the desire of college party-throwers to get very large groups of people drunk relatively cheaply while operating under the constraint of needing the alcohol itself (frequently illicit) to be in a concentrated and easily secreted form. Xanthis3 ( talk) 03:58, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
<ref name="other-refs-name" />
. Hope we can reach a consensus here!
BanjoZebra (
talk) 04:07, 24 May 2024 (UTC)Well hello, BanjoZebra! Nice to meet you. I see this article is your creation, and far be it from me to disrupt your vision for it. I misspoke when I said frat juice. And thank you for the help with the cites. I have three overall concerns about this entry which I am attempting to address:
(1). What makes a borg a borg? The borg is not a new drink recipe: it contains jungle juice, only self-mixed. It is very important that a reader understand that it's only the method of mixing and consumption that makes it a "borg."
Reading this article, I was initially quite confused on this point, thinking that the borg was causing medical problems due to its unique (and uniquely dangerous) ingredients.
(2). Risks and claimed benefits not unique. The claims about electrolytes, hydration, etc., are not new to the borg. These claims have been made about frat punch for decades, and have been debunked by health experts for decades in warnings to students and parents.
(Nor, I must say, are the streams of ambulances transporting often dozens of unconscious UMass students to Cooley Dickinson Hospital after the annual "Blarney Blowout" or the "Hobart Hoedown" a new phenomenon.)
(3). "Party juice and frat punch." I'm sure "jungle juice" is a common term in some places. But at the place that made borgs infamous, I rarely heard it. Frat punch is a more common term for the drink that would be recognized there and in New England more generally.
I agree that the current sentence structure is clunky. It doesn't read smoothly and the excess cites are awkward. I would like to de-clunkify it. Maybe the synonyms (and cites) can be transferred over to the Jungle Juice page as you suggest.
My only wish is that it is clear what a borg contains.
If the Jungle Juice entry were better-written, I would certainly feel differently. As it is, that entry does such a poor job of defining the drink and doesn't have a section that clearly refers to the familiar Kool-Aid / Gatorade mixers of college frat parties.
If you'll lend your support to the creation of a section on the Jungle Juice page, and help to communicate with any BanjoZebras of that page to explain what we're trying to accomplish, I'd be happy to do it that way. Or, if you have other suggestions as to how we can better make these improvements, I am all ears. Xanthis3 ( talk) 06:13, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
BanjoZebra, the edit-warring really has to stop. You have just reverted my concise and fully-referenced contribution for the fifth (5th) time, in spite of an ongoing conversation on the talk page. It feels to me like you're being personally possessive of the page, and insisting that you and you alone be allowed to curate it. As to your points:
- A borg is frat punch (a/k/a jungle juice) in a gallon jug. It is not a fundamentally different or new type of mixed drink. The references fully support this, focusing on the advantages/disadvantages of self-mixing. This fact is important and deserves mention.
- The Jungle Juice entry has its own issues. Let's focus on this entry before we fix the rest of Wikipedia.
- "a borg has a typical suggested recipe of vodka, water, flavor mix, and electrolytes" Right: frat punch a/k/a jungle juice. Kool-Aid or other powdered drink mix (assuming nobody wants to shell out for real fruit) spiked with vodka or rum, often with electrolytes and/or soda.
- "I think of jungle juice as an unknown mixture of various liquors and mixers arbitrarily thrown together." Maybe, but not as the term is used in the context of college drinking parties. Xanthis3 ( talk) 22:17, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
BanjoZebra. Now we're narrowing in on it.
The new version of something is a version by definition. Further, the CNN article goes on to explain just what the distinction is: “Instead of making a party-sized mixed drink in a huge 5-gallon drink dispenser, a giant storage tub, or even the grossest trend, which was making jungle juice in a sink or bathtub, everyone has their own personal drink” (emphasis added).
As with all mixed drinks, Jungle Juice has no single fixed recipe that is graven in stone.
I noticed and appreciated you not undoing my contribution while we discuss. That would be consistent Wiki practice of using the best available references while searching for better ones, and also consistent with the convention of not making changes to a contribution while an attempt to seek consensus is underway on a talk page. Thank you.
I'm sure there are more references since the broad recipe is frat punch, any way you cut it. I'll look for some. Xanthis3 ( talk) 23:31, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
To put it as the Mashable article does: "The borg is, effectively, a rebranded, tweaked version of jungle juice. But instead of being a communal thing, it's a personal drink." Exactly what CNN says, in so many words. Xanthis3 ( talk) 23:48, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
No, it's saying that it's "rebranded" jungle juice. Or, a "tweaked version" (i.e., a version) of jungle juice. Or, to put it more bluntly as the third source does, "this falsely fruity concoction has been around for years under the name 'Jungle Juice.'" Xanthis3 ( talk) 00:29, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
BanjoZebra ( talk) 00:56, 25 May 2024 (UTC)A borg is designed to be held and consumed by one individual throughout a party, distinguishing it from similar party drinks such as jungle juice and punch.
Rebranding means, basically, same product new label. Cambridge dictionary.
You say you don't buy the source's definition of jungle juice. But, to my mind, "a mixture of vodka and a cheap, fruity mixer" (from The Manual) is basically the same as your definition: "an improvised combination of alcohol and mixers."
You can't just define jungle juice out of existence by saying its a "any mystery drink." The sources are all pretty clear that jungle juice (in the college context) is a essentially a cheap fruit-flavored mixer with a high alcohol concentration, usually intended for bulk consumption at a party.
"and seems to only serve the author's argument that the borg is unoriginal"
Join the club! I have my own beefs with the newspaper writers. I personally think they are highly incentivized to make it seem that they have a scoop on a totally new phenomenon. But, as they say, "Go tell it to the priest."
"I'm genuinely wondering, what do you have against the sentence I added in the first paragraph of the lead?"
Sure. My objection is that it puts the contents of the borg outside the umbrella definition of jungle juice, saying instead that they are merely "similar." But just like an SUV is a version of a "passenger vehicle" within the broader category of "motor vehicle", so the borg is a version of "jungle juice" within the broader category of "mixed drinks." The new version yes, but a version nonetheless.
"Sure, there are some instances of jungle juice that taste like some instances of borgs, but as a whole they are two different forms of party drink, and it is reductive to call them the same"
This is really the heart of the issue. Let me ask it this way: suppose we took a borg and poured the contents into a laboratory beaker. Then we took some other jungle juice and poured it into another beaker, and had the ingredients chemically analyzed. What is it about the borg that places it outside of the broader definition of "jungle juice"?
Also: would you be happier if, instead of saying that it "is jungle juice" I instead say, "it is a version of jungle juice"? Xanthis3 ( talk) 01:47, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
A BORG (Black-Out Rage Gallon) is a frat punch a/k/a jungle juice drink in a gallon jug. Broadly, Kool-Aid or other powdered drink mix (assuming nobody wants to pay for real fruit) heavily spiked with vodka or rum, and often with added electrolytes and/or soda. Occasionally Sunny-D is used. In essence, a cheap fruit-flavored punch.
The essence of a BORG seems to be that:
In other words the BORG doesn't represent any particular innovation in terms of ingredients or recipe. The news articles focus on the advantages / disadvantages of self-mixing.
That's the way it looks to me. Are there other similarities? Other differences? Xanthis3 ( talk) 22:59, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
Here's a synopsis of the above two sections, which I've linked on Wikipedia:Third opinion:
BanjoZebra ( talk) 17:43, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
Response to third opinion request: |
Avoid any edit wars, Happy editing. Bookku ( talk) 15:13, 27 May 2024 (UTC) |