Basic Trope: A drink (sometimes alcoholic, others not) that is legendary for its unbelievable potency and unusual effects.
- Straight: Bob orders The Drink. The entire bar goes quiet as the drink is made and drunk. Intoxication Ensues.
- Exaggerated:
- The Drink is poured into an incredibly tiny glass, but has the effects of one which was made in a pitcher.
- The Drink doesn't just push someone off the alcoholic deep end - it also causes a wealth of effects including bizarre hallucinations, a temporary phobia of alcohol, chronic migraines for months after consumption (in the worst cases), and a green tongue.
- The Drink is so strong that pouting a shot glass of it inside of a car's empty fuel tank makes it go at nine hundred miles per hour.
- Downplayed: The Drink simply makes Bob sleepy.
- Justified:
- Various elements in The Drink are very unusual (alien ingredients, oven cleaner, alien oven cleaner, etc.)
- The Drink contains mundane, if extremely strong liquors (ex, rum, ever-clear, absynthe, or moonshine), strange mixers (rattlesnake venom), or garnish (sichuan buttons, a natural aenesthetic equivalent to a srynge of novacaine). It might even contain the normally toxic methanol (makes you go blind and die), which is counteracted by ethanol (makes you do/say dumb things and throw up).
- Inverted:
- The dreaded Klatchian Coffee.
- Bob is a teetotaler and orders a sarsaparilla.
- The Drink is a Hideous Hangover Cure, made just for those people who have hangovers bad enough to justify drinking it.
- Subverted:
- Bob drinks The Drink and feels fine.
- Alternately: The Drink doesn't actually exist. The bar was bluffing. They are not going to risk lawsuits.
- Double Subverted:
- Bob drinks The Drink and feels fine. Of course, it was all an act to show off; upon leaving the bar, the effects take their toll.
- The bar doesn't serve anything called The Drink - it's actually called Stomach Pump.
- When a particularly and spectacularly obnoxious Caustic Critic comes along sneering that he wishes The Drink (yes, even if it may allegedly kill him) or he will give the bar a zero and a lawsuit for false advertisement the bartender improvises "The Drink" with the strongest stuff around and hopes the S.O.B. will suffer (but not die).
- Parodied:
- Various things happen to Bob: his hair falls out, his eyes change color, he hallucinates and falls into a dead faint... Before waking up and asking for a second.
- They use The Drink as a poison for unsuspecting enemies. Or as an improvised emetic.
- In a show that has already showcased it did its research on cocktail mixing, the utterly absurd list of disparate ingredients and steps to mix The Drink that would result in a pint full of liquor-laden sewage in real life will make the bartenders in the audience guffaw.
- Jim tosses a shot-full of the Drink inside of Bob's car's fuel tank, and the car gets drunk. It races at nine hundred miles per hournote , Bob can't control it, and the engine does the occasional Alcohol Hic.
- Bob drinks The Drink exactly once. He proceeds to pass out, then wake up again, then pass out, then wake up again...
- Zig Zagged: Different people have different reactions to The Drink.
- Averted: Bob orders a beer.
- Enforced: "We need some humor in the bar scene. Let's have Bob order this ridiculously powerful drink!"
- Lampshaded: "I drank what?"Bob: "I like it. It's real smooth. Bit of a chemical smell, though."
Barkeep: "Yeah, well, it sneaks up on—"
Bob: "I CAN SEE THROUGH TIME!!!" - Invoked: On the bar menu is The Drink, listing all the various ingredients and reasons why one shouldn't order it.
- Exploited: Bob buys The Drink... for his rival, who he does not want to see leave the room in healthy condition.
- Defied:
- Bob's friend Jim tries to get him to order The Drink, but Bob knows better than to do that.
- The Drink is the bar's best-known cocktail, but the bartender refuses to add absurd/risky ingredients like Cobra Fang Juice. It is an extremely well made variant of the Winona Radler, but it's a Winona Radler all the same.
- Discussed: "Man, that guy must have some sort of death wish."
- Conversed: "Are all bars required to have one offered drink that causes temporary seizures?"
- Deconstructed: The Drink is seen to be highly toxic and dangerous, leading to a serious medical issue for Bob or possibly even death.
- Reconstructed: The toxicity only applies to people who haven't spent at least two weeks on Yavin VII in the past three months. People who have still suffer the side effects, but it is no longer dangerous and is in fact done to turn a potentially fatal hangover into a high that lasts for days.
- Played For Laughs:
- Bob does all sorts of embarrassing hijinks while under the influence of The Drink, which his friends constantly humiliate him with afterwards.
- Bob uses The Drink as fuel for his regular vehicle. Cue a Running Gag of every alcoholic in the county trying to steal his "gasoline".
- Played For Drama:
- Bob dies or is permanently incapacitated because of The Drink. The bar that served The Drink shuts down because of negative publicity and his death/incapacitation leads to a widespread crackdown on dangerous alcoholic beverages.
- The outrageously combustible properties of the Drink are showcased early on so the audience will know what happens when Bob fills a dozen Molotov Cocktails with the Drink as part of the Lock-and-Load Montage.
- Played For Horror:
- The bartender mixes The Drink with expired ingredients and the results on Bob's innards are Body Horror. The hallucinations? That's his visual cortex going completely haywire and eventually dying.
- The Drink has this reaction on people because it was made with ingredients that nobody who considers themselves sane would even think of adding, like blood of junkies who overdosed on LSD.
- The Drink was specifically made for drugging up unwitting people in plain sight so they could be dragged away by "bouncers" for sex trafficking or worse fates.
- The Drink is demonstrated to have a very highly explosive/combustible factor so we will know what will happen to Bob when he spills some of it on himself and lights up a cigar… a case of "spontaneous human combustion" that will kill Bob and about a dozen other people.
- Implied: Bob orders The Drink. The scene changes immediately, but the next time we see him, he's hammered.
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