Everyone’s favorite tubed mystery meat is now a mainstay at cocktail bars around the world. As usual, for better or worse, much of this trend has played out on TikTok, in the form of drinks that taste like hot dogs, hot dog water Dirty Martinis, and Martini and hot dog pairings. But while glizzies — and pieces explaining what the hell a “glizzy” is — are trending at the moment, the weenie and the ‘tini have far deeper ties than we may realize.
Hot dogs are summer. They’re long holiday weekends and backyard barbecues. School is out of session and it’s not dark until 10 p.m. and life is good. They represent one of the strongest and most essential pieces of nostalgia we have in our lives. And while our collective association of a hot dog and a cold beer at a sunny summer baseball game is particular to the U.S., the allure of the tubed meat in its myriad mystery forms spans much of the globe.
Why wouldn’t we want to recapture a small sliver of that in one of the few adult places — the watering hole — where we’re allowed to let our guards down and forget about emails and have a good time?
Hot Dogs Are So Hot Right Now
At LilliStar in Williamsburg, the “Hot Doggin’ It” is served in a drink pouch that calls to mind the foil wrapper of a street cart hot dog. The drink is garnished with a cocktail wiener gummy,
