And if you don’t even know what that sentence means, you’re probably not a member of Gen Z.
According to the National Capital Poison Center in Washington, D.C., BORG is an acronym for “Blackout Rage Gallon.” The term refers to a concoction often prepared in a gallon-sized plastic jug that typically contains vodka or other distilled alcohol, water, flavor enhancers, and electrolyte powders or beverages. BORG is often drunk at outdoor day parties known as darties.
new version of jungle juice
BORG contains so much alcohol that “drinking it can lead to potentially life-threatening drinking and alcohol poisoning,” says the Department of Psychiatry and Addiction at Stanford University in California. said Dr. Anna Lembke, professor of medicine.
Sabrina Grimaldi, founder and editor-in-chief of online lifestyle magazine The Gillenial Gin, says the bulk drink is a new version of jungle juice. This publication targets the micro-generation between Millennials and her Generation Z.
“Instead of making party-sized mixed drinks in giant five-gallon drink dispensers or giant storage tubs, or even the most egregious trend of making jungle juice in the sink or bathtub, everyone makes their own personalized drink,” Grimaldi told CNN in an email. As the drink’s name suggests, it’s “intended to get you seriously drunk.”
What Lembke calls BORG’s “social contagion factor” makes it even more dangerous.
“Kids see other kids doing it and want to do it themselves,” she says. “This is the other real danger here: taking dangerous deviant behavior and normalizing it by spreading it on social media.”
Gen Z binge drinking
Grimaldi, 24, first learned about BORG earlier this year when editorial intern Kelly Xiong, 21, asked her about why BORG is so popular among Gen Z. That was when I was approached to talk about this.
“I graduated from college in 2020, so it’s safe to say I haven’t been part of the college party scene in nearly five years (especially because of the pandemic),” Grimaldi said. “It’s crazy how these micro-trends pop up even though Kelly and I are so close in age.”
Xiong, a recent graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, first learned about BORG during her sophomore year.
“It was during the St. Patrick’s Day Block Dirty, and almost everyone had their own BORG,” she told CNN via email, adding that the drink was popular at large outdoor day parties and “special He added that it is especially popular for “Dirty Days”.
The origin of the term is difficult to trace, but BORG made headlines. This includes an incident in March 2023 in which more than 20 students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, many of whom were believed to be in possession of BORG, were transported by ambulance after an accident. campus event.
High school students are drinking BORG
This trend is not limited to college students.
Virginia (18), a third-year student at a private high school in Tampa, Florida, said, “Everyone made their own BORGs” at the pool parties for high school seniors last year and this year. She didn’t want her real name known, she said. her privacy.
Virginia said one of the reasons BORG was drawn to her was the social aspect. “You’ll have to name the BORG with her name and be creative by writing the name in a Sharpie,” she said.
BORG posts featuring gallon jugs with funny names like “Captain Borgan,” “Our Borg and Savior,” “Borgan Donor,” and “Borgan Wallen” are proliferating on TikTok.
Thinking along these lines is part of what makes BORG potentially dangerous for people who use it as a party drink, Lembke said.
Virginia said she is aware of the dangers of drinking BORG. “A lot of people just pour vodka and don’t measure it, so it could be more dangerous than finding out they drank three cans of beer,” she says. “Nobody really rations how much they drink.”
This is true even if the person is 21 years of age or older, which is the legal drinking age in the United States.
According to the National Institutes of Health, a standard drink in the United States contains 1 to 1.5 ounces of distilled spirits, 5 ounces of wine, or 12 ounces of beer. According to the NIH, a woman is considered overeating if she drinks four or more standard drinks (or five or more for men) within a two-hour period.
“BORG often contains one-fifth (25.6 fluid ounces or 3.2 cups) of vodka or other hard alcohol, which is the equivalent of about 17 standard drinks, making it a huge amount of alcohol,” Lembke said.
No matter how much alcohol you drink, it’s not good for you
Many recent studies have shown that no matter how much you drink, it’s not good for your health, so it’s actually best not to drink alcohol at all. In 2022, the World Heart Federation released a policy brief stating that “no level of alcohol consumption is safe for health.”
When it comes to drinking alcohol, health experts encourage moderation. According to the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, this equates to less than 3 ounces of alcohol per day for women and 4 ounces for men. Lembke also recommended not making it a regular habit.
Lembke says the liver processes about 1 ounce of alcohol per hour, or the equivalent of one standard drink. Depending on the amount of alcohol in the mixture, Lembke says drinking BORG can “completely overwhelm your liver’s metabolic capacity,” especially if you’re not yet tolerant of alcohol.
The fact that BORGS are typically sweetened with diluents such as electrolyte drinks or water flavor enhancers only makes them more dangerous, she says.
“This makes it taste better, and people generally drink more of it than something like straight vodka,” she says. “But it does not improve the liver’s ability to metabolize alcohol.”
