NYT Investigates The Shoey, Finds Kacey Musgraves Is A Genius

Clive Mason / Staff & Emma McIntyre / Staff/Getty Images
By  Allison Shoemaker

Remember the shoey?

Yesterday, The New York Times published a delightful longread about "Australia's grossest drinking tradition," a practice which, as you might guess from the above image and the name combined, involves drinking out of a shoe. The piece above goes into the origins of the practice, as does the Times piece, and I encourage you to click on through to read both in full. (Maybe do ours twice, just for kicks.)

But this piece won't rehash the history of "doing a shoey." We're here, instead, because of the greatness of Kacey Musgraves, and the fact that she apparently travels with a handy glass slipper.

The NYT piece mentions that touring musicians often find themselves deafened by cries of "shoey!" when visiting Australia; some, like Post Malone, happily gulp beer from footwear and go about their set. When Musgraves was in Sydney last week, the Times writes, she heard the shoey chants:

"I'm not drinking out of your shoe," she said to the fan who offered, adding an expletive for emphasis. "You could have athlete's foot or something."

This earned admiration from some corners.

The following day, however, Musgraves was in Melbourne, and she came prepared.

Kacey Musgraves did a shoey by bringing her own glass slipper to the show, filling it with tequila (per the Times, but also of course it's tequila) and chugging it like a pro.

In the interest of journalistic integrity, I should mention that I was already low-key obsessed with Kacey Musgraves before learning that she essentially saved herself from drinking out of a dank foot-smelling shoe by putting the whole tradition in drag. But were I not, this would just about have put me over the top.

In conclusion, here's a food-related song from the undisputed Queen Of The Non-Gross Shoey:

Cheers, Kacey. (And cheers, Gray Lady.)

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