CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — College spring break season is at its peak, and binge-drinking and safety are at the forefront of law enforcement and healthcare providers’ minds. The latest drinking trend among college-aged people is something called black out rage gallons, or borgs.
Borgs are gallon jugs filled with water, a fifth of vodka, and a few splashes of a flavored beverage mix. 21-year-old junior Case Redmond said he likes that he can control how much goes into his drink when he makes a borg.
“It’s a lot easier to like, measure how much you’re taking at a time, I guess,” he said. “It’s more personal.”
Since borgs contain a lot of alcohol—approximately eight times the CDC recommended intake for men and 16 times for women—Redmond says that he only makes them for special occasions, such as gamedays.
While still dangerous due to the amount of alcohol consumed in such a short period of time, harm reduction specialists, like Erin Monroe, explain there are some safety benefits to this drinking trend.
“This is a closed container,” she said in a TikTok that has garnered over 3 million views on her page. “So as long as you’re keeping the lid on when you’re not actively consuming it, the risk of somebody putting something in here that you don’t know about is significantly decreased.”
Monroe also emphasizes that you don’t necessarily need alcohol to make a borg.
But that wasn’t the case for Redmond, who was gearing up for the UNC-Duke basketball game. He added around 10 ounces of vodka to his borg, around half of a fifth-sized bottle.
Redmond followed the trend down to choosing a yellow-colored Mio and naming the jug with a pun featuring the word borg: “Lemon borg-eo.” The name references U-N-C basketball player Pete Nance’s favorite pre-game snack, the lemon oreo.
To reduce the risk of alcohol-related harms, the CDC recommends limiting intake to two drinks or less in a day for men or one drink or less in a day for women. A single drink by CDC standards can be either 12 ounces of beer, eight ounces of malt liquor, five ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces of a distilled spirit.