Inside The Drinks, Tailgating & Traditions Of A Tennessee Vols Football Weekend
This is part of PubClub’s School Spirit(s) series, exploring the drinks, bars, traditions and drinking rituals surrounding college football. This installment features the University of Tennessee, where the drinking traditions start with Jack Daniels Tennessee whiskey.
By Kevin Wilkerson, PubClub.com Editor & Publisher
There’s an old Neyland Stadium joke that if you manage to get into the game without any Jack Daniels, don’t worry – someone will give you some. And that’s as big a part of the University of Tennessee football tradition as the Volunteer Navy, the checkerboard end zones, the splitting of the “T” and singing Rocky Top.
Unlike some schools that are known as much for a cocktail as their football team – the Hot Toddy at Ole Miss, for example – or have a drink with a strong association to the school such as the Yellow Hammer at Alabama, Tennessee does not have one specific cocktail identifiable with the Vols. It’s pretty much Jack Daniel’s and whatever people put in it.
The PubClub Twist: The Salute To The Hill
Now if PubClub.com were to create a University of Tennessee drink, it would be something like this: the Salute to the Hill. Naturally, it starts with Jack Daniel’s, then adds orange juice, ginger ale and triple sec. It’s Tennessee whiskey, Tennessee orange and I gave it this name because the Salute to the Hill is my personal favorite UT tradition.
For those curious about it, “the Hill” is the original part of campus. Before each game, the band walks through campus toward the stadium, stops in the street, turns toward the Hill and plays a series of “UT songs,” as I call them. Then it continues directly into Neyland Stadium where is does another tradition: it “splits the ‘T’ formation to enable the football team to run through the letter onto the field.
Where Tennessee Fans Drink Before And After Games
Tailgating at Tennessee starts along the Tennessee River, either at Calhoun’s or among the line of boats tied up to the docks – and to each other. As one of only three college football stadiums by water, Tennessee has what it calls the “Volunteer Navy,” and it’s a prime spot for tailgating. A lot of people walk along there before games and if you ask nicely then you might be invited onto one of the boats. I have been in the Volunteer Navy, on a friend of my parents’ houseboat and I can tell you from personal experience it’s really cool.
The G parking lot by the stadium is the tailgating spot for those on land but don’t linger at either place too long because thousands of people flood the area in front of and to the south side of the stadium for the Salute to the Hill.
Tennessee Football Drinking Traditions & Superstitions
Tennessee fans are superstitious of anyone wearing crimson. Other than that it’s the usual superstitions of Southern sports fans: having the same pre-game and in-game routine, changing shirts when the team isn’t doing well (my sister will not watch the games on TV; rather she goes into another room, gets on a treadmill and listens to it on the radio) and other things they did once that worked when the Vols won so they keep doing it.
The drinking tradition goes back to one thing: Jack Daniels.
Kevin Wilkerson is a Knoxville nativea nd the founder of PubClub.com, an award-winning journalist and nightlife expert who has covered destinations, events and nightlife for more than two decades. While working as a newspaper reporter, he received an Associated Press award for investigative journalism.
Next Stops On The Tennessee Football Party Bus
• The Full UT Gameday Experience
• Top College Football Party Towns
• School Spirit(s): The University of Alabama
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