FOR BY Ashleigh Barraclough

If euphoria were a beverage, it would undoubtedly be the Vodka Cruiser.

The luscious, fruity notes of everyone’s favourite drink literally taste like that time in Year 11 when you got absolutely plastered in some guy’s yard while his parents were sleeping inside.

So if you’re feeling fed up with the responsibilities of adult life, grab a Cruiser and enter a nostalgic trip into your teenage years, when life was simple and your biggest problem was which flavour to drink first.

So if guava’s not your jam, or if you think pineapple’s frankly just a bit gross, but don’t worry because there are not one, not two, but eight flavours of Vodka Cruiser!

Assignments and exams getting you down? Need to bring alcohol into class to numb the pain of studying Marxism? Try the Vodka Cruiser Mudshake range! It both looks AND tastes like choccy milk, so simply pour some into a water bottle and no one will question your choice of drink.

And if your tutor does discover your alcoholic tendencies, simply offer them a sip of your Vodka Cruiser and watch both of your problems fade away.

The haters will try to tell you that Cruisers can’t get you drunk, but that’s where they’re wrong. While these bad boys are only one standard drink each, they’re so easy to drink that before you know it you’ll have downed a six-pack by 10p.m.

I for one can assure you that Cruisers once got me so wasted that I found myself crouched over the toilet vomiting up a tidal wave of fluorescent red liquid (if you’re reading this, sorry Mum). Also, colourful vomit is FAR more fun than normal vomit.

If I haven’t yet convinced you that Vodka Cruisers are the bee’s knees, I think I know why. You’re a large, manly, male whose mates believe that drinking Cruisers is akin to forsaking your masculinity. Fear not, I have a solution.

Pull out your pack of Cruisers at a party and watch the girls flock to you, desperate to get their hands on one of your delicious beverages. Your friends were laughing before, but now you’re the manliest of the men, masculinity intact.

Maybe Vodka Cruisers are a gift sent from the gods, or maybe they’re just a highly palatable alcoholic beverage. What I’m certain of is that I’ve never seen a sad person holding a Cruiser.

AGAINST BY Gajan Thiyagarajah

Nuclear fission gave us the atomic bomb. Genetic modification gave us crops that’ll eventually result in babies being born with two heads.

But when Isaac Newton developed the theory of a visible spectrum of light, not even in his most terrible nightmare would he have conceived of the absolute bastardisation of this concept that is the Vodka Cruiser. It’s the ultimate exercise in capitalism, as whoever invented these liquid incarnations of an LSD trip decided it’s appropriate to sell alcoholic beverages ranging from ‘Mudshake Chocolate’ brown to bright pink guava and sky-blue blueberry (I don’t even want to know how they’re turning these things into these colours).

‘Cruisers’ are the very definition of a gateway drug. Given their not entirely disagreeable taste, the result of a minimal concentration of actual vodka and a metric tonne of artificial flavours and emulsifiers (I actually have no idea what the fuck emulsifiers are but I’m sure they’re guilty of something), they’re the favourite drink of sixteen year olds around the nation who haven’t yet acclimated to the more bitter taste of beer, spirits and, god forbid, even the weakest of ciders. I’m also fairly certain they’re responsible for the concept and phrase ‘white girl wasted’.

Vodka Cruisers enable inexperienced patrons to achieve sweet, sweet inebriation without offending their as of yet innocent sensibilities, before eventually moving on to harder and more sinister substances such as moonshine and marijowana.

There are two problems here.

1. The amount of this abominable beverage the average pubescent human being needs to consume to approach a drunken state has severe implications for bladder relief, resulting in inflated bathroom lines at the house party, nightclub or festival of your choice;

2. In the event of indigestion, what goes in must come out, and the image of brightly rainbow coloured projectile vomit is not one that’s easily scrubbed from one’s retinas (which, ironically, belong to the same body part which poor Newton must so romantically have imagined delighting in the rhapsody of colours availed to us by refracted light).

“Hey!” said Johnny to his pals, “Let’s go have a good time by getting trashed on a minimum 3L of fluids which resemble the watercolour we used to fingerpaint with in kindergarten and contain enough sugar to trigger early onset type 2 diabetes” is not something that has been said, ever. We must put an end to the distribution and consumption of Vodka Cruisers for the good of humanity – or at least before aliens come to Earth, because that’s not a legacy I want to spread.