Drop that "animal beer"! Toast the Huskies with a Purple Gang Martini...

The recent successes of the University of Washington basketball team take you back, and remind you were an impoverished student. You scrimped to pay your tuition, books, ramen and rent... but astonishingly still had money for alcoholic beverages. Back in the day, you weren't particularly fussy about what you consumed so long as the State of Washington required you to be 21 years to make a purchase. Think Monarch vodka, "animal beer" or -- God forbid -- Everclear. Sometimes you are amazed that your liver is an "original part."

Now you're a grown-up and you exhibit more care when picking your alcoholic beverage. You want to celebrate the University of Washington's appearance in the Sweet Sixteen (while hoping that the team will extend its participation in March Madness) with an appropriate-themed alcoholic drink. Sure, you can whip up grape Jell-O shooters... but you feel queasy at the idea of cleaning up purple vomit off your oak hardwood floors, and rightfully so.

The Internet offers the Purple Gang Martini, an appropriate hued cocktail that piques your curiosity. The beverage derives its name from the use of Purple health/fruit/health drink flavored with a syrup that hints of blueberry, blackcurrant, pomegranate, cranberry, purple plum and black cherry. The antioxidants from the berries will assuage your guilt about drinking on a "school night". Or so you hope.

Purple Gang Martini

• 2 oz vodka

• ¾ oz PURPLE juice drink

• ½ oz triple sec

Pour the ingredients into a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake well. Strain into chilled cocktail glass.

Enjoy. And go, Dawgs. go.