Drinking around the world – the Disney way

Drinking Around the World is a game spoken of online and in hushed whispers between adults seeking respite at Disney Resort poolside cabana bars.IvanZivkovic/Getty Images/iStockphoto

By the time we hit Germany, it's a slurred, "Zwei bier bittttterrrr," and, by France, it's me ordering "un glass de pinot noir" in a muddy garbage accent so unmistakably Franglish that the server correctly infers, only a bit despairingly, "Es-tu Canadien?"

Mais oui, monsieur. I am. Big time. And, like so many weary travellers before me, I'm liver-deep in one of Disney's more hush-hush adult attractions: Drinking Around the World. It's a game spoken of online and in hushed whispers between adults seeking respite at Disney Resort poolside cabana bars. The challenge is simple. Head to Epcot's World Showcase and down a drink in each "country." That's 11 beverages for each one of the pavilions inspired by different global cultures.

It starts simply enough, with a mind-numbing mango margarita in Mexico. (Or, "Mexico"; I'll drop the quotes from here on but the implication, of course, is that these aren't actually countries so much as mildly funny riffs on them.) From there, it's an aquavit (a Scandinavian spiced liqueur) in Norway, a Dragon Pearl (Tsingtao spiked with milky tapioca) in China, an inky dunkel beer in Germany, a revitalizing plastic flute of Prosecco in Italy, Yuengling in America (known in the showcase as "The American Adventure," after a propagandistic robot play), a Kirin in Japan, a Champagne and cherry liqueur thingy in Morocco (dropping its namesake nation's prohibitions on the hard stuff), that $5 French wine I mentioned earlier, a black-and-tan from a British-style pub in the British-style United Kingdom, and a flight of Unibroue microbrews in dear old Canada.

Eleven drinks across 11 shrunken-down, caricatured countries may seem like a daunting task. But it's not so bad. Sure, the prices sting. But the promise of filling out that conceptual booze passport offers sufficient motivation to keep slogging through Epcot's cavalcade of broad national clichés. What better way to subvert Epcot's spectacle of boring global unity than getting half-hammered, laughing at a display of animatronic Ben Franklin crowing about American exceptionalism and smirking all soused-up next to a sign advertising an immersive, Martin Short-narrated, 360-degree "Circle-vision" movie called O Canada!?

Time was, it was near-impossible to get a drink at Disney World. Now, one of its lamest attractions has gained new life as a low-key backdrop of boozy debauchery. Spending $110 on far-flung beers proves that Disney World is not just for kids any more. Surely.

The writer was a guest of Walt Disney World Resort. It did not review or approve this article.