Sick of vodka and lem? Here’s everything else you can be drinking this Freshers’ Week

Like it or not, for many of us drinking is a big part of uni. 

From Wednesday social nights to house parties to rogue nights out you didn’t plan, many of us will find ourselves with the option to drink at least once a week.

While you do not need to drink at uni to have a good time, for a lot of us, we do find ourselves drinking on a regular basis. Going out and trying to keep our student budget in mind, we often find ourselves defaulting to the same pre-drinks drink time and time again and, quite frankly, getting sick of it. 

So, here’s a list of different and unique pre-drinks that a student budget can afford. 

1. Flavour your spirits

One of the many reasons people tire of the same drink is not necessarily because they don’t like the spirit itself but because the flavour gets boring. However, for those of us trying to stick to a student budget, spending upwards of £20 on a bottle of flavoured vodka is something we would rather avoid. 

The simple answer: Flavoured cordial or squash. 

By this I do not mean “squash-ka “.I’ve been there, done that and have no interest in doing it again. I’m talking equal parts vodka to squash, mixed with lemonade or tonic. Which makes for a far more enjoyable drinking experience. 

Adding a dash of pineapple juice or elderflower cordial into your drink quickly makes it more exciting, without costing you a small fortune. 

2. Don’t underestimate a ‘tinny’

An issue that often appears is how to get your pre’s drink to the pre’s when you’re not hosting. The ease of pouring some vodka into a 7UP or Diet Coke bottle results in us all defaulting back to the same combination again and, quite frankly getting getting sick of it. 

What many of us seem to forget exists are tinned cocktails. Which you can often buy on a mix-and-match deal, meaning you so easily default from having to have the same drink for the tenth night out in a row. 

Meaning this option is both budget-friendly and exciting. 

3. Shop the deals 

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Our next recommendation is not a groundbreaking new drinks recipe, but rather a suggestion of using some common sense. Common sense, which I personally have seen to have lacked for my first two years of uni. 

Simply put, shop the deals and take advantage of supermarket loyalty cards. 

Half the reason students default to only drinking vodka lemonade, vodka and orange amongst many other combinations is due to the fact that it is cheap. Now, I’m not denying this; however, there are many other ways to drink to your budget. 

Tesco, for instance, offers 25 per cent off when you buy six bottles of wine. The only real condition is the wine has to cost at least £6. 

To prove my point, I’ve done the maths. Let’s take chicken wine, a tried and tested favourite, which retails at a cost of £8.75 per bottle. You buy six, which would cost you £52.50 normally; however, with the 25 per cent off, it would cost £39.37. Working out to roughly £6.50 a bottle, suddenly opening up a drink option which isn’t just vodka. 

4. Cheap cocktails 

For the first year of uni, I personally ruled out the idea of making a cocktail completely, on the premise that the ingredients are far too expensive. However, I would now argue that this is a huge conspiracy theory. 

While the recipe that I’m about to recommend may offend some of my bartender friends, I would still argue that it is still a very good attempt at a Sex on the Beach on a uni student’s budget. 

The basic recipe: One part vodka, two parts peach schnapps, two parts orange juice and two parts cranberry juice. 

5. Get creative with the leftovers 

Sometimes your greatest moments occur during your greatest moments of desperation. Which in this case is at the end of the semester where you can’t afford to go and buy a new bottle of spirits and mixer. Instead, you must simply make do with what you have.

From these moments of desperation, we’ve discovered some fabulous drink recipes. One is a vodka mixed with both cranberry and lemonade, basically the love child of two staple uni drinks which no one seems to have thought of combining. 

Let’s just say, when we tried it, it was life-changing. 

So the moral of this story is: Get creative with what you’ve got and experiment!