Food Theory: This TikTok Drink is the Best WORST Idea Ever! (BORG) 

Wait... Star Trek isn't cool?

When I was in college my friends and I made my borg with caffeine-free kool aid because a very nice nurse on campus had told us the dangers of caffeine with alcohol I’m very happy that we were told this before something bad happened

As a college student who lives in an area with tons of fraternities, I’ve heard so many people talk about this. One of my friends said that if you didn’t make the Borg it will send you to the morgue, but if you bring your own you’re more likely to make it home.

The points about avoiding spiked or drugged drinks are actually really solid, I hadn't even considered that. If you just put like, kool aid or sports drink in with maybe a smidge of alcohol if you felt like it, that'd actually be just fine.

Matt's suggestion about the Borg Baby I'd pretty spot on. On my college campus I've seen people utilizing the smaller 1/2 gallon bottles for their Borgs instead of the traditional full gallon. Additionally I highly doubt many people utilize the full bottle of vodka for their Borgs, usually it's 1/4 a gallon vodka with 3/4 water. Additionally, I have never seen anyone use an ENTIRE bottle of Mio for their Borgs. That's wayyy too expensive for us college students to be wasting like that.

I actually love how refreshingly honest your point on the safe side of personal drinks at parties can be. The stats of spiked drinks in and out of college are absolutely terrifying, and the amount of mostly women that I know of that have been spiked and assaulted angers me to my core. Kids, if youre gonna borg, do it safe, either limit the alcohol level or remove the caffeine side of it before doing so.

Unis student here who also works in a bar: I have had an entire bottle of vodka in one night before (with mixers, I'm not that stupid). Here are my drinking tips to stay safe 1- if you are at a party, never drink when you're alone. At least one person in your group HAS to stay sober. Make it fair by rotating 2- my personal recommendation is to only get drinks in bottles, like VK, WKD, Rekordilig, Budweiser etc. Don't get mixed drinks or drinks from taps (in my experience they are also cheaper) 3- if your drink is unattended for even a SECOND, that is no longer your drink. Abandon it or even better, dump it to prevent others from drinking a potentially spiked drink. 5- If five people enter the party, five people are leaving. If your friend is drunk, do not let them go to someone else's place for a hook up. Especially if that other person is sober. 6- if you don't see the drink being poured, do not drink it. If you feel uncomfortable with someone who bought you a drink, or you just don't want it, put it down discreetly or accidentally spill it. DO NOT do anything you are uncomfortable doing. Practice saying no. No does not stop predators sadly, but it can get someone else's attention 7- ALWAYS MAKE A SCENE if you feel unsafe. Make as much noise as you can, get all eyes on you if possible. It does not matter if you are embarrassing yourself. Your safety is more important. 8- (this one is just for convenience and can be more fun with the right people) drink at home with friends. Make your own foul cocktails in the safety of your own home. Worst case scenario, you throw up in your bedroom sink and have to spend an hour cleaning it the next morning. Have fun and stay safe!!!

I actually really like how this turned out! The safety of carrying around your own drink and the bonus of not needing to drink the alcohol there to fit in, I like to think someone realized the benefits of normalizing the concept of the BORG and ran with it. Honestly though I think I'd be skipping on the caffeinated flavoring. There are other options.

I think the gallon size is to make sure you dont run out and can always say no to other peoples drink offers. You dont have to drink it all on the night. You could take it home & then bring it to the next party. It helps hide how little you've been drinking, particularly if you always start with one that is at most 3/4 full.

Love the fact matpat is pointing out the safety part of it. I can’t trust any drink that wasn’t made by me or can be left open

If you just make it in a Liter bottle instead of a gallon (using 1/4 the ingredients) and use non-caffeinated flavoring, it adds up to a reasonable all-evening party cocktail for one person, and no need to monitor your intake drunk because you planned it advance when you.were sober

I was going to mention how bringing your own BORG could keep you from being pressured into drinking. I personally never want to drink alcohol (even though I want to go to bartending school for a bit when I'm older since chatting up patrons and mixing drinks definitely seems like something I can do), and bringing a BORG to a party that's actually just a bunch of fruit juices + possibly some soda/sparkling water would let people think I'm drinking and avoiding pressure to do so when I'm staying completely sober. As you mentioned it would provide safety in knowing no one added something to it as well (another advantage not drinking as a bartender could bring, being able to notice that someone slipped something into another person's drink even if they don't).

honestly just using a non-caffinated drink mix and a smaller container would fix this entirely. im not exactly a partygoer but i can see the good intent behind it to keep yourself safe

I like the idea behind the borg; the control over your drink. I feel like once people understand just how many drinks they're putting in, they'll be able to make a smarter decision.

Thank you Matt from the bottom of my heart and soul for talking about how often people are getting their drinks spiked. More people need to be talking about how bad it's getting and how life altering it can be. Seriously thank you

This is better than what my college friends used to drink. It involved a few cans of red bull and blue Gatorade drink mix made with vodka and everclear instead of water. It was surprisingly drinkable considering you could probably run a car on it.

Can I just say thank you? I feel like you grabbing our attention saying how dangerous is the borg, then explaning that spike drinks are a huge deal is really important. I really appreciate it that you are always trying to make the world a better place! ( One diet coke at the time! )

Aaaaah I remember college days. The non drinkers and less experienced drinkers loved my colorful ‘drinks’. Pink lemonade with some fruit and herbs. Made it look like a cocktail but no alcohol. Ever since been making more ‘mock tail’ recipes. I saw borgs at college and that what started me making fake but fancy looking drinks.

I agree with the points MatPat laid out here. The safety from drugging and spiking is actually a really big positive of the borg that I wouldn't have even considered at first. That being said, alcohol abuse is really something I hate seeing being risked. My brother's been hospitalised and my dad's been addicted, it's scary stuff and borg just sounds like death in a jug

Thank you for talking about the spiked drink stats. I’m afraid to go to bars or parties when I’m 21 out of the fear that my drink will be spiked and I will be assaulted. Even bartenders have done that some times!

Seriously thank you for talking about things like spiked drinks and the like. Not a lot of youtubers in the genra tend not to bring it up, let alone bring stats into things. As someone who had to be equipped to handle these situations from an age younger than I probably should have, whenever I go out to social settings and end up people watching, I see so many red flags, and have even caught (and stopped) situations happening. So many people are reckless with things like this and it's something I didn't expect to be brought up. Again, thank you so very much for talking about this.

I was surprised by the amount of vodka in the recipe

LOL legit if this was a thing when I was 21 I would definitely make it at home without alcohol before going to my friends or a party. I hated being pressured to drink and this would have saved me from all that nonsense.

This is my favorite food theory episode and I cant place why... its just everything the theory channels stand for: informative, has a twist, funny, is about a dangerous topic as far as yt goes. Good job!

i am SO happy that MatPat talked about the commonality of spiked drinks; too many people forgot how serious it is 😣

Being in the UK, and as a teen, we regularly brought entire bottles of vodka with us which were absolutely gone by the end of the night. Borg seems to be a reskin of whatever random stuff we threw together hahaha

Thank you for getting this information out again. It is easy to forget how absolutely dangerous caffeine mixed with alcohol is.

Concerning the strength of the drink: By the volumes listed in the video (rounded for simplicity), the ratio of water, booze, and mix is 50/20/30. Meanwhile, at home I'm mixing my rum & Coke at a ratio of 0/40/60 (no water for me, I actually want to taste the rum, thanks). Unless my math is super wrong, because my drink isn't watered down, that means by volume, BORG contains half as much alcohol as my rum & Coke. So either this drink is basically safe (if consumed over the course of several hours) or I'm nearly dying every time I drink. When drinking at home, I drink out of a Coke glass, which holds exactly 444ml (or one entire can of Guinness). I tend to drink two of these, which equals about 355ml of rum total (approximately the volume of a soda can). If I were to push it to four drinks, that's about 710ml, almost the whole bottle of rum, and more than a liter of Coke. This would definitely have me throwing up and probably going to the hospital if consumed within a couple hours. This brings me to the subject of high intensity drinking. Maybe I missed it in the video where it's explicitly stated, but is anyone actually drinking a whole gallon of this stuff in 2 hours? It seems more like the kind of thing you do to last you a whole night, which is exactly how I might use it at home for an 8-hour drunk-gaming session. I suppose it all comes down to pacing yourself and knowing your limits, or as it's often phrased: "please enjoy responsibly". Note: I recognize that BORG apparently uses vodka, and I drink rum. However, both have an ABV of 40%, which is all that matters for our purposes.

That perspective of having a Borg for safety is really great, and not something I would have thought of. Because otherwise, it's essentially the simplified gen z version of hunch punch. Everyone had their own recipe, so you had no idea what you were actually drinking-just that it would give you the result you wanted 😂😂

I don't drink, but this sounds like it has the potential to be the best or worst idea depending on the individual making it. More water, less alcohol, no caffeine, add some flavor and/or hydration enhancers, then pace yourself, and you might have a recipe for a good time. I still wouldn't drink it, but I get it. With the right tweaks, I approve.

You raise some very good points about the dangers that are present with borgs. I think a lot of it can be nullified by reaching out and teaching people proper safety of alcohol. The common "Borg" at my university typically contains about half a bottle of vodka, and while that is still a lot, it is noticibly less than an entire bottle, as well as the frequency of people finishing an entire gallon is low, and usually only seems to happen at long parties, or with pregames that lead into parties. Due to educational programs offered by our health prevention and advocacy center, they've also encouraged people to not use caffeine within them. While incidents due still happen with people getting overly intoxicated, from anecdotal experience, the issue of assault, while still present has gone down. Alcohol in a borg is still alcohol, and we must educate people to drink and treat it as such.

Those stats on spiked drinks are interesting. I think I drank a spiked drink that was intended for someone else when I was in university. I have very little recollection of much past the first drink and spent days throwing up and shivering after. The area I was living was rife with drugs and you could pretty much get anything if you knew someone or looked hard enough.

My older brother actually would take a non alcoholic borg to parties so he wouldn’t have to worry about the things you said in the second half of the video. In reality it would just be kook-aid most of the time

The Borg is honestly more about harm reduction. If you think about it many of those old school punch bowls had 2-3 servings of alcohol per red solo cup (on the low end) and I have seen people drink 6 or seven solo cups by the end of the night. That's between 12-21 servings of alcohol so not too far off. This way they have a visual of how much alcohol they are actually consuming, they make it, it's labeled so it won't be mixed up, and it has the added protection of the cap to prevent contamination. All in all, it's a pretty ingenious way for people who's frontal lobes aren't totally developed to stay safer than before!

This is potentially a smart idea. And since you can adjust the BORG's recipe, you could potentially make it completely non-alcoholic.

i was a lil worried when u sold the channel but when u explained and showed us nothing would change i felt better, plz never stop what u do i would like to see grandpa pat lol you guys have helped me threw a lot and if anybody in the theorist family sees this thank you to

The base mixture is pretty scary as stated in the video but the customization means that those dangers can be decreased or even negated, I mean one could even have a borg full of soda and juice with no alcohol if they really wanted to. All in all I think if the drink is made responsibly the benefits definitely make the Borg a worth while idea.

I agree that this is great for regulating your consumption and guarding against spiking, but it only works within a house party setting. No bar or club is going to allow you to bring your own massive jug of alcohol

My psych teacher spent an entire class period talking about the affects and differences on how how things like alcohol, caffeine, and certain drugs affect you and what happens when you mix them. She was one of my favorite teachers, conditioned us to taste lemons when we hear payphone by maroon 5 😂 don't worry, we supplied the lemons and all of us consented to forever associate lemons with a song

When you consider that one BORG would be probably shared among multiple people it actually begins to make a great deal of sense. One handle is 17 shots, divided among 3 people is around 5.6 shots per person. This is still not perfectly safe, (no alcohol is safe) but assuming that you drink that over the course of around two hours and that is a reasonable amount of alcohol. You will not throw up or be more at risk than anyone else (just maybe find a caffeine-free flavoring method)

I am a freshman in college. Party’s are most certainly not my thing so I had no idea what a borg was until I walked into my room while my roommate was gathering the ingredients to make one. I was just like why do you have mio and vodka.

from what I have heard on the topic, one of the LARGEST reasons why people like it so much is due to the high water content which greatly reduces hangover symptoms

Seems like it’s perfectly fine in terms of drinks, as long as there’s no caffeine put in it. I’m glad that people are getting educated about being safe while doing this stuff. If someone wants to get drunk, they’re GONNA get drunk, so it’s better if they’re safe about it.

It’s common at my school for a group of friends to share a borg, so it’s not just one person tackling it. Most people also use non-caffeinated flavoring.

you'll never be done covering stupid tik tok trends MatPat

I saw one of these when I was in college 10 years ago. I knew from the smell of booze that it was a BAD idea. And for the spiked drink issues, yeah, I remember going to a sanctioned party by the RA’s and tasting the Hawaiian punch when it first was laid out and then after a refill, and I knew it had been spiked with something nasty. The staff had to dump the whole jug, but by then several women and men were passed out. I’m glad I only dipped the tip of my tongue in it before noping out of there.

I'm actually a really big fan of the baby borg idea. You definitely should not have a full one in your hands while under the influence of alcohol, much less caffeine if you're crazy and want to do that, however having a set amount for you to drink in advance and easily be able to see where you are along that line is great. If someone is wild enough to want to do caffeine and alcohol, having a set amount of each that's specifically measured out is exactly what you need. Ironically, the baby borg can be used as a tool of moderation while the full borg just seems like the complete opposite. It would be really interesting to see how this could evolve.

I will say that the spiked drink scene is definitely being handled the best it can be I was once escorted out of a party just for moving someones drink to get to my drink that was behind it alot of people are taking it seriously and I completely understood and yes i pled my case and was told it was just a precaution and I am 100% for this at any function but i will definitely be asking people to move their drinks instead of me just doing it from now on

Polish version of it is called "kociołek panoramixa" (Panoramix's cauldron in literal translation, apparently it gives you an unhuman powers, just like in the french comedy movie) Recipe includes: 500ml of vodka 4 cans of beer 750ml of sparkling wine 1l of energy drink 200ml of concentrated raspberry/cherry juice Mix it all together and it's done (can even be heated, but then it loses the sparkling effects) The point is to make it as cheap as possible, which usually makes it poisonous af. I'll never forget the headaches that happened day after consuming this potion in higher doses.😅 I reckon that this "borg" stuff is nothing when compared to Polish enchanted version, but it doesn't suprise me tbh😂

Fascinating how many of those Four Loko stories were parents suing the manufacturer of an alcoholic beverage for the consequences of their children drinking way underage.

I think in smaller measured quantities, the borg is a great low cost idea at college party settings. Being drugged at parties is a huge issue so I hope some college students use the borg wisely and not to get themselves so drunk they get hospitalized. Maybe rename the smaller borg to something else

10:58 I don't even drink but when i went to a school party i was literally FORCED to drink alcoholic beverages, i denied multiple times but it felt horrible not having a single person accepting my choice and leaving me alone

I love your additional comments near the end of your vid on the pros of the borg. Appreciate what you do for society

Matt honestly does offer the best solution here - just make the bottle smaller. Minimize the risks by reducing the amount of dangerous chemicals being imbibed, and you keep all of the safety features the borg already has!

Honestly pretty nice to be able to mix up all your drinks for the night while still completely sober. Kinda puts a lid on the "just one more" behavior that leads to toilet prayer.

7:47 I would not expect them to cancel out. I've experience what happens if you try to cancel out spicy with minty: it creates the taste of hellfire. Hence I'd expect mixing caffiene and booze to create a culinary eldritch abomination

This is actually really darn sad, the part about spiked drinks, geez just another reason not to like college smh

Overall, I think it's a good thing so long as you're responsible with what you put into it. A borg with water, non-caffeinated flavoring (maybe actual Kool aid), and a set amount of alcohol that is well within your own limits might actually keep you safer imo.

I know it's not glamorous but I really appreciate Matt delivering what is essentially a PSA in a semi-interesting way. Information about these risks needs to be put somewhere where people will listen.

I love that conclusion. Very cool to know people can use this to protect themselves.

my star trek hyperfixation forced me to watch this 10/10 totally worth it

As an avid borg enthusiasts. Borgs is fantastic, i make mine without caffeine, but the ability for safety from getting drugged and the ability to control your alc content is awesome

I love this concept, even being a non-drinker myself. It increases drink safety with how you're the only one opening and closing the bottle, and the only one drinking from it. I also love the fact you can control what you put in, so if you don't like the taste of alchohol you don't have to put it in your borg

I expected Matt to say the amount of water in a Borg is great for making you less intoxicated, but customization and safety are cool as well.

My university only lets first years live in dorms (rather than cluster housing) because they kept having to call ambulances. Dorms are more supervised but we still managed to use fireworks inside on Halloween lol

My older brother made a borg pretty recently. I had to bring him water the next morning cause he was so sick. I don’t think I’ve ever had to do that before

I was honestly shocked to hear the recipe you said, because when I had seen a TikTok about it a few months ago the recipe they gave was only a cup of alcohol. And a whole bottle contains 3.17 cups so that's an insane upscale

I usually find a borg to last me 2-3 nights if i'm drinking solo. Makes it great for sharing and parties. also there are non caffeine water flavor enhancers.

Finding the silver-lining in all things bad is my favorite thing about the Theory channels. Pairing water intoxication with Caffeine overdose and excess amount of liquor BUT at least you know what's in it and can keep you relatively safe during the parts of the night that you can recollect.

"I love my alcohol to remind me of elementary school snack time." Couldn't have said it better myself 😂😂

8:34 You missed a golden opportunity to label the gallon Eight Loko.

Suggesting no one will add anything to your Borg while you're in toilet or whatnot. Please don't start having fake feeling of safety just because you came "prepared", because that's when you're the most vulnerable xD

This episode really opened my eyes. I have never heard of a Borg because I’m not in college but every time I drink I drink tequila and monster because someone told me drinking monster would get me drunker and I always fall asleep after drinking a a little, so it helps me stay awake, but I did not know the effect it had on my body until just now and that’s crazy so thank you you

Love the addressing of the whole subject; it’s good that you’re acknowledging how bad the drinking culture is in younger people, and you’re just keeping them informed. Also, a note from me(someone who’s native to the Western MA area), it’s actually pronounced Am-merst not Am-herst lol

Baby borgs are actually super common!! Lots of people don’t want to drink a whole gallon so a half gallon is pretty useful too :)

I found it interesting that a lot of the posters suing Four Loko are suing because of the death of a very underage kid

I used to very frequently just drink a bottle of 750ml vodka straight at parties, so the watering it down immediately made this safer in my opinion 🤷‍♀️

that kind of drink is very popular with university students here in Mexico, we call it "aguas locas" or crazy waters, just instead of vodka we use a liquor called tonayán that costs around 3 dollars per liter.

Y'know I was also going to write this off as people making bad decisions, but seeing the actual safety provided by making your own drinks I definitely get it. I've had a jungle juice or two that was definitely too strong, and probably not super safe.

I used to do this years ago back in my early college days, except we’d use the cheapest rum we could find and then put a bunch of crystal light packets in it (lemonade or pink lemonade). We called it Limoncillo and it was delicious. It was still dangerous though cause since it tasted like juice we’d get super wasted.

10:21 oof I’m also an assault survivor (sa when I was four) definitely will not consume anyone’s alcohol or food in collage

I only saw it once, and I liked the idea so much that I made one. Mainly for the set amount of alcohol that you don't exceed, and the hydration/electrolyte aspect that basically kills your hangover, which is interesting if you're anywhere past your mid 20s. You don't have to go overborg with caffeine, I mean one regular red bull to a gallon won't hurt at all

Dude, the Four Loko/Joose/Sparks days were rough. The market was flooded with "energy beer" in the mid to late 2000s. While I was in high school and shouldn't have been drinking, they were absolutely everywhere. It was so easy to overdo it when all you had to do was slam 3 or 4 of these deceptively sweet tall cans with energy drink ingredients.

It's pretty funny to watch things like this as a Slav, because I've seen kids under 18, which is a legal drinking age in my country, down an entire bottle without stopping and come out fully functional after 12 hours sleep, altho I could count such people on 2 hands it is impressive

This was a very good video! I'd not heard of the BORG but as you said, it can be utilized for more good than bad and I can't completely hate it. Love how much emphasize you put on safety, not just with the BORG but also with spiking drinks and food. Like. It's so important. Thank you.

I like the idea that if you don't want to drink alcohol and instead can put juice and water etc in these bottles is a good idea. But also it's a very sad idea to think that's what you have to do to save yourself from getting you're drink spiked. I think we could do with changing people's mindset that you CAN have fun without too much , or no alcohol when going out to parties etc it's been imbedded in our heads for generations and I think things need to change for everyones safety.

Something I've noticed across all channels is that they're sneaking related real life issues and discussions into the videos. And I absolutely love it. Thank you for your help in the conversation.

I’m the farthest from a heavy drinker you can get! (I can’t even handle non-alcoholic punch if it’s too fizzy!) so as someone who always plans on only having safe snacks and drinks at any party, This is such a great idea! (I might just go for water plus Kool-Aid, and some other ingredient that’s safe to add and healthy!

Mat thanks for covering this topic from such an objective point of view! I am personally a huge fan of the borg and it’s a big craze at my college (JMU) rn. The main reason we do it is because 1) it’s cheap 2) it’s an easy way to keep all your drinks in one place for the day without having to carry around a whole fifth cops can call out from a mile away or a pack of drinks where half of them are stolen and 3) it’s a conversation starter (people name their borgs crazy things and then talk to others about it). All that being said you’re entirely right about all the facts and people should drink in moderation! I groaned when I saw this pop up in my feed but thank you for a great video as always!

I think stuff like this is what we need more of, not the borg, but this type of video. The type of video meant to inform people of the dangers & risk of something, but also sympathize for those making the mistakes & possibly seeing the benefits of it. And, entertainment plus education is always good

I literally remember my 1 christian friend did the same. just 2-3 years ago, he would attend parties with a bottle of mixed juices, completely indistinguishable from the other people with juice vodka mixes, and while we dont quite go to borg levels with it, we do prefer to have an easy way to mix vodka into something that actually tastes good.

The trend on tiktok is like a middle finger to the lives of today's youth. When mostly or you can said all of them can get you killed or get serious injuries to your body and your internal organ.

I work in a college town and saw so many kids carrying these around on St. Patrick’s Day weekend! Thank you for helping me understand wtf I was looking at lol!

My friend invented (or codiscovered) the borg long before the internet he filled a jug with coolaid and vodka and passed out after the half and he went viral. In the early 2000 it gained popularity again with the advent of social media.

My roommates and I made these just this past weekend, we did it because taking shots by itself is hard and not fun so we did it for the taste. We used generic water enhancers that have no sugar or caffeine and because we were in a controlled environment, we poured out our borgs into glasses and paced ourselves that way. I think this way is much more efficient than a traditional borg.

The energy and enthusiasm in this video were contagious, it got me pumped up!

Maybe, another episodes giving alternatives? Different bottle types that could help with measurement provide other benefits and safer limits with smaller consumptions.

While the caffeine bit is new, back in my teenage years in the 80s here in Denmark, we used to mix up drinks in 2 liter plastic containers (about 0.53 gallon) to take to parties. The drinks were always the kind that completely masked the alcohol, so nothing new here. Just typical US upsizing. 😉

I’m a third year university student and have never heard of “a borg” before until clicking this video 😂 I only commute to my campus for classes and don’t drink for a mix of personal belief and medical reasons so I guess it makes sense lol. I’ve also never been to parties because ew socializing 😂😂😂 I’ll take my coffee fix, just of course at responsible levels of caffeine lol. Please stay safe everyone!

not only entertaining but also very educational, awesome video!👌👍