Back in the day, when we were all partying pretty hard on an everyday basis (we’ve grown and matured since — mostly), a buddy of mine who went by the handle of "Chewbacca" found a guide to making various fancy bar drinks in a box of old books. After flipping through it for a few minutes, making all sorts of derogatory comments about the sissified yuppie scum who’d have the audacity to order some of these blended fruity concoctions in a public drinking establishment, he suddenly paused for a moment. "Hey, here’s one called gorilla punch!"

It was a weak vodka-based punch that some tropical nightclub was famous for, and was supposed to be served in a punchbowl with a bunch of chopped fruit tossed in. "Check this out! This is great! I’m gonna make a batch of this for our big party tonight!" I looked at the picture of the grinning elitist drones standing around a punchbowl filled with green fruity stuff with great disdain, and told Chewbacca that if he insisted upon serving this travesty I would stir up each and every glassful with my dick, whereupon an intense debate about the merits and faults of gorilla punch ensued.

Eventually, we reached a compromise: he could make the punch for the party on three conditions: It would not be served in a punchbowl. There would be no fruit. Everclear grain alcohol would be substituted for the vodka. Everyone agreed to try the punch, and Chewbacca was happy.

The recipe, as we modified it, is as follows:

1.) Obtain a clean plastic bucket (5 gallon capacity), a large glass measuring cup, a big wooden salad spoon, a large funnel, and several empty plastic water jugs with screw-on caps.

2.) Purchase a half-gallon bottle of Everclear grain alcohol (190 proof rocket fuel that is meant to be heavily diluted — a favorite punch ingredient at fraternity parties) and a quart of Blue Curacuo (an artificially blue colored, orange-flavored liqueur used in some mixed-drinks) from a well-stocked liquor store.

3.) Purchase 2 half-gallon cartons of premium orange juice, and 2 half-gallon cans of unsweetened pineapple juice from your local supermarket.

4.) Assemble the ingredients on a clean tabletop. Open the cartons, cans, and bottles, then dump everything in the bucket. If you want to measure things out for a smaller batch, the formula is: 1 part Blue Curacuo, 2 parts Everclear, 4 parts orange juice, and 4 parts pineapple juice. Slowly stir with the big wooden salad spoon while chanting "Green Gorilla Punch Really Fucks You Up" — you need to chant this phrase thirteen times while wearing a pair of boxer shorts on your head.

5.) Using the funnel, carefully fill up three plastic jugs with punch (do not overfill — leave about an inch of airspace), then cap securely for transport. Grab a couple sleeves of disposable plastic cups, and you’re good to go! Be sure to take the bucket along. After this party was over, we forced Chewbacca to hang a "party bucket" (on a rope) around his neck for a month.

Gorilla punch is a strange and terrible brew. It looks like antifreeze, tastes like Kool-Aid, and has all sorts of disgusting floating things in it (the pulp) . . . it also has the peculiar tendency to make those imbibing it go totally batshit. The girls loved it — they were taking off their shirts, wrestling on the floor, and hanging upside-down from the railing over the stairwell. The guys acted like baboons on acid, doing backflips, swinging from the chandelier (it broke), and spitting fireballs with the little bit of leftover Everclear (they set one of the stereo speakers on fire and singed the dog’s ass). In the morning, we found that someone had punched out the bathroom medicine cabinet and left their underwear inside, another idiot had puked in the aquarium, and the lawn was covered with beer cans and empty plastic cups. Everyone apparently had a good time, though (even if they couldn’t quite remember it), and no significant damage was done to the house we were using. We vowed to be more careful next time.

After observing the varied effects gorilla punch had on the nervous system of primates, we worked out the following formula, based on the standard 12 oz. plastic cup:

1 GLASS of gorilla punch is roughly equivalent to 4 beers, and will give you a mild buzz.

2 GLASSES will get you drunk, but you’ll still be somewhat functional.

3 GLASSES will fuck you up, and you will feel compelled to do all sorts of stupid shit.

4 GLASSES will make you go totally batshit.

5 GLASSES . . . no-one had more than 4 glasses, and we do not wish to speculate on what might’ve occurred if they had. The scariest thing about this stuff was that nobody passed out from overimbibing — indeed, it seemed to imbue those who partook with an abundance of energy. People would be jumping about, cackling like lunatics, and it was obvious that they’d been possessed by the alcohol demons. We learned to fear and respect this stuff.