Shedding light on a secret senior tradition: the real truth behind Whiskey Monday

Photo: Emily Smith

The weekend is not enough. It takes more than simply Friday and Saturday nights to satisfy the social appetites of the students at CC. Rigorous class schedules for all and thesis mania for seniors instill that itchy feeling that inspires the everlasting cliché of “work hard, play hard.” We do this, and we do it well. The block plan, it seems, drives us to develop nocturnal proclivities that extend beyond the prescribed weekend. 

Schools around the country who — gasp! — don’t have class five days a week bubble-over their boisterous weekend booze-driven behavior to Wednesday and Thursday nights. Here at CC, without the luxury of stacking our classes Monday-Wednesday to provide ourselves a true four-day weekend each week, we have to get creative.

So we Whiskey Monday. 

We Whiskey Monday because we need to bite the Monday slump; we Whiskey Monday because we’re out west — and in the west, you drink whiskey, damnit; we Whiskey Monday because the freshmen don’t know to swarm; we Whiskey Monday because the weekend is not enough; we Whiskey Monday because it is tradition.

But why is it tradition? Where along the line did “Whiskey Monday” become an upperclassmen colloquialism? How did it earn capitalization and regard from all those “in the know?”

Like any good legend, there’s no real way to track down the origins of this wonderful celebration of whiskey. Rumor has it that in the not-so-distant past, whiskey was discounted on Mondays at Weber Liquor in attempt to raise profits on the slow-moving weeknight. Weber Liquor employee Carol has no memory of this and disagreed with fervor: “It’s whiskey Wednesday. Whiskey discounts on Wednesday. Not Monday. I don’t understand why you kids love to defy the charm of alliteration and drink your whiskey on Mondays.”

I first encountered the tradition my sophomore year here; we caught it from the then-seniors and carried it out in our various underclassmen housing in small groups. It’s almost strange to see how much the event has changed in the intervening two years. In our early days of whiskeying our Mondays away, 10 people gathered around a single handle of Kentucky Deluxe in the Italian House was the norm. But while it’s different now, the spirit is the same. Walking into a chosen off-campus house to tens of grinning faces and a wide array of mixers and whiskeys, hearing the music and feeling the warmth, both inside and out, feels just the same as it did two years ago. The beauty of the tradition, as we understood then, and have learned to appreciate since, is that it is upperclassmen only. By default rather than through enforcement, it is a party that thrives on the exclusive camaraderie of the junior and senior classes. It’ll never be on the senior calendar; someone tried this eighth block but the Whiskey Monday crew rallied to the same house, just like always, snubbing the sensationalized imitation of Lumberjack Daniels.

Whiskey Monday loses its point if it’s on the calendar, anyway. Because of the naturally smaller crowd, Whiskey Monday is a break from the sweaty, humid, can’t-move-two-inches-in-any-direction-without-having-beer-spilled-all-over-you house parties of Friday and Saturday. It is a departure from the keg party because the nature of the drink itself. Instead of pounding keg beer, Whiskey Monday is about sipping mixed drinks. 

“Whiskey is about feeling warm around a campfire, not sweaty around a keg. That, in a nutshell, is the spirit of Whiskey Monday,” said a current host. 

The idea is elegant in its simplicity; walking into Whiskey Monday, you know there’s no chance you won’t see people you know. You’re there because you share a common interest in the warmth of a comforting brown beverage, because you are most likely of legal drinking age, because you know some of the same people, and you’re going to see all of them tonight.

It is the social jump-start to the school week, which is often filled with long nights of fluorescent library lights. Whiskey Monday is a unique CC twist on the three-day-weekend, a refusal to let go of the fun we’ve been having since Friday night regardless of what our schedules might say.

Whiskey Monday has been passed down ritualistically for years. This past Monday, the current senior hosts handed down the responsibility to juniors of equal Monday-night whiskey-drinking enthusiasm. 

Standing on a chair, glass raised high, with a thick Boston accent it was exclaimed, “We pahss this trahdishon on to yeh, boys, may we cahnfidently trust in yeh to carry it on with all tha fervor and love that is Whiskey Monday!”