Straight Guy Lesson #9- Crew Juice

The airline version of Top Chef’s Restaurant Wars is Crew Juice Battles.  Crew Juice is an umbrella term referring to anything alcoholic made on the plane with ingredients found onboard solely for consumption on the van ride to the hotel or at the hotel itself.  If you take minis off the plane and sneak them into a Yankees game to mix with your $8 Pepsi, that’s not crew juice, that’s just stealing.

Crew Juice is usually made in gallon jugs and comes in a variety of colors and strengths.  Common concoctions are fruity rum/vodka drinks, champagne-infused, the mudslide variety, and my specialty…red wine sangria.  Some flight attendants make their name by making jello shots which are always a crowd pleaser.  We’ve tried every flavor out there and everyone has their favorites.  I like classic lemon with vodka but watermelon with vodka has been making a resurgence lately, as has tropical punch with rum.  It’s not unusual for flight attendants to tell Pax we don’t have any more champagne when really it’s all been used in crew drinks that are chilling on ice.  The nice thing to do would be for us to use the crappy pre-departure champagne and save the good stuff for the paying passengers, but no, we’re a group with refined taste and high standards.

It’s usually the galley’s responsibility to make the crew juice since they have the best access to the goods and the most free time on their hands once we get into the air.  If there are three cabins on the plane you might get three jugs of different drinks.  Some people take it very seriously and guard their recipe with their lives.  They won’t even give you a hint of what’s in it.  These are the same people who see at as a victory when their gallon is gone first.  They’ll push theirs on the crew like a used car salesman and then talk shit on yours.  “Oh no sorry, my super secret wonderful drink is gone but there’s still plenty of Brian’s sangria left if you want some of that.”  It really gets under their skin if you tell them you don’t really care for whatever they made.

Everyone has their favorite drink and there are lengthy discussions on who does what the best.  I like to call mine the “babymaker.”  I’m not sure if that’s a misnomer or not.  Some have said it’s the best sangria in the system but I know it’s not unanimous.  I have no problem giving out my recipe.  In fact I’d love it if more people would make it themselves so I don’t have to bother doing it or lugging it around.  In fact, here it is for anyone wanting to try…

One carton Minute Maid OJ

Two cans of Minute Maid Cranberry Apple juice

Grapes from the Business Class Dessert Service

Fresh fruit from the First Class Breakfast service

Berries from the Ice Cream Sundae Service in First Class

Two bottles of the lighter red wine

4 to 8 minis of vodka to give it kick

2 minis of Amaretto to cut the harshness

1 can of Ginger Ale as the passengers are deplaning to give it some refreshing sparkle

I’ll put the juices in as soon as I have an empty gallon jug and put it on dry ice.  I’ll add the rest of the ingredients as they become available throughout the flight.  By the time we land it’s very cold and maybe a little slushy.  Some people like the slush but I prefer it to be just short of slushy, just very cold but totally a liquid.  The fruit that has been marinating in the drink for hours can really pack a punch.

When trying to decide if you have enough crew juice or if you should make one more batch, the answer is always Yes, make more.  It’s better to have too much than not enough.  You never know when you’ll be stuck in traffic for an hour.  It’s not unusual to stumble off the van in some places like Paris where even on good days the drive is well over an hour.  It’s a sad sight to see exhausted, wrecked crew members with their uniforms untucked and half unbuttoned.  For some reason hotels give us our rooms much quicker when we’re drinking crew juice in their lobby in front of the other guests.

It’s also a good idea to bring extras because you never know when the crew will decide to go to someone’s room for a “debrief” once you get to the hotel rather than go to sleep.

Debriefing is a little celebration airline crews have with whatever alcohol we stole off the plane.  We celebrate not dying in a plane crash or killing any passengers en route.  If the alcohol makes it through the van ride and then through the debrief it may be seen at the pre-departure drinking session that occurs after everyone naps, but before we meet at the hotel bar or go out for food.

If the layover is long enough you might get the dreaded Two-Hangover-Layover.  You might have the crew juice on the van, then debrief, take a nap, and wake up with your first hangover.  You rally through it and have dinner with the crew and start in on more drinks.  That might last until the wee hours and the next morning you get Part Two of the hangover.  Those mornings are the worst.  That’s when you think about your college days and see how old you’ve really become.